If you were to ask me what this book was about, I wouldn’t know where to start. I asked a friend of mine how they would summarize it, and they went with this:
“It’s a collection of essays about how we are a failure as a society—but funny!”
– David’s friend
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. This collection of essays focuses on topics with the theme that remains apt to the title of the book itself—reflections on self-delusion.
That said, Tolentino’s writing is astute, colorful, and utterly sassy. She weaves accounts of things she’s done in her own life with past literature, history, as well as modern events to reveal some biting truths about how we as individuals see ourselves relative to the world. In other words, the author basically reveals the secrets behind every way of thinking about ourselves possible—informing us that the opposing ideas that fundamentally go against how we might identify ourselves are actually identifiers in and of themselves. And the varying facets of society play a large part in that.
Confused yet? Have no idea what the hell I’m talking about? Me too! But it makes sense if you think about it. Take an excerpt from Tolentino’s essay on the concept of the “ideal woman” and how it’s shifted with the workings of modern feminism,
“Most women believe themselves to be independent thinkers…Even glossy women’s magazines now model skepticism toward top-down narratives about how we should look, who and when we should marry, how we should live. But the psychological parasite of the ideal woman has evolved to survive in an ecosystem that pretends to resist her. If women start to resist an aesthetic, like the overapplication of Photoshop, the aesthetic just changes to suit us; the power of the ideal image never actually wanes.”
– Excerpt from Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino
Taken from one of her included essays titled “Always Be Optimizing,” Tolentino goes on to explain how expectations of beauty have shifted for women over the decades; how despite the popular myth of looking your most natural or “being yourself” has become mainstream, it’s really just become another commodity. Despite the change in trends, the general goal remains the same—to be the “ideal woman.” With that said, marketing, social media, and capitalism come into play to further expand on how the definition of “ideal woman” evolves throughout the constantly changing cultural zeitgeists.
All of Tolentino’s essays are like this. She discusses things like the toxicity, hypocrisy, and absolute wonder that is the internet, the dynamics of reality TV and how that plays a role in how the people in those shows identify themselves, the euphoric parallels between drugs and religion, and what we choose to accept or ignore in order to willfully enforce who we are.
The recounts of her own life experiences are the greatest highlights of the book to me. Tolentino talks humorously about her brief stint as a child reality TV star, her religious upbringings, her fascination with her college despite its spotted history with sexual assault, and the ways in which she took advantage of the negative aspects of internet communities to help her career as a writer. When she looks back on what she’s done, nothing’s lost on her as she reflects throughout the book. She takes in as much as she can in order to expand on the broader topics she brings into her essays. They color her perspectives in ways that do nothing but add to the conversation, and I can’t help but admire how she does it.
If it wasn’t already obvious based on my ramblings here, this book is a lot. But Tolentino writes with such a flow that the academic stylings of her writing don’t detract from its accessibility and intrigue. It’s smart and funny and at times mind-blowing. In fact, I would suggest reading this book while high (only if you’re into recreational drugs of course). There are so many observations she makes that leave you with such epiphanies. I felt like it was a wasted opportunity not to have been cannabis-induced while turning the page.
But I digress. Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror reveals a lot of things we already know, but uses that knowledge to play with the antithetical. In other words, it uncovers the (at times) parasitic relationship we have between self-identity and society. In other other words, this is a collection of essays about how we are a failure as a society—but funny! And there’s simply so much to it, that it’s difficult for me to really form any kind of coherent verdict other than…it’s good! Read it! You’ll feel dumb but also smarter!
The Dang Void 