Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
Jia Tolentino, a staff writer at The New Yorker, gathers nine essays on the internet, feminism, capitalism, religion, and the self. She writes about her time on a reality show as a teenager, the scam economy of the 2010s, the way weddings collapse under contradictory expectations, and the strange communal architecture of megachurches. Each essay uses her own life as a lens on a larger cultural machine, and she is unusually honest about her own complicity. Trick Mirror was one of the most talked about essay collections of its decade and put Tolentino on the very short list of critics young readers actually trust. It is best read slowly, one essay at a time.
What you might want to know about Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Nine essays on the internet, capitalism, and womanhood by one of the sharpest critics of her generation.
Swisher has praised Tolentino's work on her podcasts and cited Trick Mirror as one of the essential books about how the internet has reshaped identity and culture in the 2010s.
They share a preoccupation with self delusion but read as standalone pieces. You can start anywhere in the book.
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion was written by Jia Tolentino, published in 2019 by Random House.
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion is 320 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.