Trick Mirror
Reflections on Self-Delusion
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Trick Mirror
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Narrated by:
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Jia Tolentino
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Written by:
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Jia Tolentino
About this listen
New York Times Best Seller
"From The New Yorker’s beloved cultural critic comes a bold, unflinching collection of essays about self-deception, examining everything from scammer culture to reality television." (Esquire)
Book Club Pick for Now Read This, from PBS NewsHour and The New York Times
"A whip-smart, challenging book." (Zadie Smith)
“Jia Tolentino could be the Joan Didion of our time." (Vulture)
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize for Best First Book
Named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by the New York Public Library and one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review • Time • The Washington Post • NPR • Variety • Esquire • Vox • Elle • Glamour • Good Housekeeping • The Paris Review • Paste • Town & Country • BookPage • Kirkus Reviews • BookRiot
Jia Tolentino is a peerless voice of her generation, tackling the conflicts, contradictions, and sea changes that define us and our time. Now, in this dazzling collection of nine entirely original essays, written with a rare combination of give and sharpness, wit and fearlessness, she delves into the forces that warp our vision, demonstrating an unparalleled stylistic potency and critical dexterity.
Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This is a book about the incentives that shape us and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly through a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Tolentino writes about a cultural prism: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the advent of scamming as the definitive millennial ethos; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the punitive dream of optimization, which insists that everything, including our bodies, should become more efficient and beautiful until we die. Gleaming with Tolentino’s sense of humor and capacity to elucidate the impossibly complex in an instant, and marked by her desire to treat the listener with profound honesty, Trick Mirror is an instant classic of the worst decade yet.
Finalist for the Pen/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
"Jia Tolentino is the best young essayist at work in the United States, one I’ve consistently admired and learned from, and I was exhilarated to get a whole lot of her at once in Trick Mirror. In these nine essays, she rethinks troubling ingredients of modern life, from the internet to mind-altering drugs to wedding culture. All through the book, single sentences flash like lightning to show something familiar in a startling way, but she also builds extended arguments with her usual, unusual blend of lyricism and skepticism. In the end, we have a picture of America that was as missing as it was needed." (Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me)
©2019 Jia Tolentino (P)2019 Random House AudioWhat the critics say
"Jia Tolentino narrates her own collection of essays with precision, clarity, and urgency.... Listeners receive an intense onslaught of sophisticated diction and syntax, but, thankfully, Tolentino uses vocal intonation to make her words accessible in the audiobook format.... Listeners will feel that Tolentino is talking directly to them, making her arguments even more compelling." (AudioFile magazine)
“It's easy to write about things as you wish they were - or as others tell you they must be. It's much harder to think for yourself, with the minimum of self-delusion. It's even harder to achieve at a moment like this, when our thoughts are subject to unprecedented manipulation, monetization, and surveillance. Yet Tolentino has managed to tell many inconvenient truths in Trick Mirror - and in enviable style. This is a whip-smart, challenging book that will prompt many of us to take a long, hard look in the mirror. It filled me with hope.” (Zadie Smith)
“The millennial Susan Sontag, a brilliant voice in cultural criticism.... She remains engaged with her subjects even as she scratches her head and wonders why we do what we do. Even better: She writes like a dream.” (The Washington Post)
“In Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino’s thinking surges with a fierce, electric lyricism. Her mind is animated by rigor and compassion at once. She’s horrified by the world and also in love with it. Her truths are knotty but her voice is crystalline enough to handle them. She’s always got skin in the game; she knows we all do. Her intelligence is unrelenting and full-blooded, a heart beating inside every critique. She refuses easy morals, false binaries, and redemptive epiphanies, but all that refusal is in the service of something tender, humane, and often achingly beautiful - an exploration of what we long for, how we long for it, and all the stories we tell ourselves along the way.” (Leslie Jamison, author of The Recovering)
What listeners say about Trick Mirror
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 2019-08-19
Must Read For Anyone With A Head Full Of Thoughts!
Brilliantly written and observed, his book has essays on everything from Reality TV to scammer culture. The author tackles the conflicts and contradictions that define the times we are living in. She boldly digs into how hard it is to see ourselves clearly through the forces warping our vision.
While I imagine the intent was to reach her own age demographic (thirty something), I found plenty that applied to my own (fifty something). I was relieved that thoughts I attributed to my inner curmudgeon were shared by smart thirty somethings!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 2020-01-04
Lived up to the hype
A wonderful and calming listen. Every essay kept my attention and full of perspectives I never considered. Recommend to any and everyone!!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Tyler
- 2021-02-21
Profound, honest, and accessible reflections
Brilliant exploration of feminism, capitalism, and race in an accessible and stimulating essay collection. This work is deeply personal and relatable with honest critiques of self and society.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Rov
- 2021-02-08
Reflection on the book
Strange is the imprint of the book. You ride this feeling of slippery slope through out the book. The stories are hard to relate to but you are embroiled in them. It is possibly the rocking of my own self-delusion that gives rise to this uncomfortable feeling. I find myself wanting to recommend this book to everyone, yet very difficult to actually convince them to read the book.
The book ultimately is Jia's self-reflection and thus should not be read in a way to find resolutions. Rather, the value of this book comes from the demonstration of effort required to self-reflect. This book should demonstrate complexity of society and how ideologies are morphed and integrated into a society straying from original intention. It should motivate you to understand the lives around you beyond the surface and superficial. This book should trigger you to evaluate your commonsense and belifes regularly and find the underlying truth.
I will close this with my own thought on our self-conduct "I encourage individuals to express themselves however they want to because I express myself similarly. I admire the individuals that having understood how they want to express themselves, choses to express themselves in a way that upholds the confidence of their valued others, this is the growth I seek."
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- Josh K
- 2019-09-10
Rewarding and exciting
I couldn't recommend this book more. Her eloquent insights into internet culture and western society are brilliant and, at times, chilling.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Nicolle Stevenson
- 2023-07-24
Loved the insight!
Jia’s viewpoints on many modern day topics, and the history behind them, were riveting and challenging. I loved that my personal opinions (or lack thereof) were tested in my own brain.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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- Lisa O'Leary
- 2020-01-20
Dont believe the Hype, it's trending for no reason
This book was part of my book club. First book of 2020. 10 of us bought it. Most couldn't finish, I switched to Audio (because I like to finish things). It felt like reading someone's college essay with too many references to "examples" or "research"..We really didnt like it.
The tone felt like like the author has a grudge with life, very one sided and in my opinion she purposely went out of her way to find pieces of "research" to narate the negative story she was trying to construct. Didn't offer an alternative view or opposition. It was very "American" too with American problems with society. Not exactly riveting material if you've travelled seen the world or know better.
A huge thumbs down and a disappointing read/listen considering it is on the Obama Reading list.
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1 person found this helpful