Wow. Such unsettling, mind-blowing, hilarious, and terrifying essays! I loved each one for what it made me feel and what it made me ask myself. This is a book I will be purchasing and coming back to over and over again. Brilliant.

In her debut collection, Jia Tolentino of The New Yorker muses on reality TV, literary heroines, increasingly materialistic weddings and more. The opening essay on Twitter is a knockout; if it doesn't outright convince you to delete your social media account(s), it'll undoubtedly plant the idea in your head. The other clear highlight is "Reality TV Me," a beautiful recollection of the author's time as a contestant on Girl v. Boys: Puerto Rico. Tolentino is intensely booksmart and isn't afraid to beat you up with one brick-like paragraph after another in order to show it. Occasionally I yearned for the pithiness of Camille Paglia, but the end always justifies Tolentino's means, and I wouldn't do without any of these nine pieces.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in exchange for this review.

A clever collection of essays. A must read for anyone willing to look deeper into everyday life. Add this book to your end of summer TBR.

This book is excellent. The essays are wry, informative, and often self-questioning. The topics are broad, but Tolentino is able to take the long view and make things personal. Highly recommended!

What can I say, this book is amazing. I love Jia Tolentino and I read Jezebel every day. This is a great read for anyone regardless of gender. Boom.

I am all for strongly worded criticisms of the time, but this struck just a little too negative for me at this time. I am not interested in reading a hopeless title at the moment.

Tolentino comments on the sensational media topics we are inundated with every day - from cancel culture to feminism to weddings to Amazon. Her takes on topics like, in my favorite essay, include: who do we exercise for?; athleisure disguised as capitalism; and group exercise classes are refreshing and bold. She's funny, well-researched, and clearly plugged in to the social media culture of the millennial generation, which is her target audience. I tended to skim through some of the essays, and a few tended to feel longer than necessary, but others described exactly how I feel about $45 group exercise classes, the tradition of weddings, and the biggest scams of the day (i.e. Trump and Jeff Bezos).

Jia Tolentino might be one of my new favorite essayists. Sharp-witted, dedicated, and funny, Trick Mirror is an excellent look at American culture, and what we've turned into as a society. Described as "a book about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly in a culture that revolves around the self", Trick Mirror allows the reader to take a step back and examine parts of our culture through a lens that highlights both the good and the bad. The Internet and social media, bridal extravagance, reality TV, aging and beauty, literary heroines, rape culture in American colleges are all topics Tolentino picks apart, and her thoughts shed new light on quite a few of these for me. While she does have a tendency to go off on tangents, each essay held my interest, and everything she pulled in to further her points helped suck me in even more. My favorites were "Ecstasy", "The Story of a Generation in Seven Scams", and "We Come From Old Virginia", but each essay had parts I enjoyed. I've read a few of her other articles, but I can't wait to read her past works now, and I especially can't wait to see what she comes up with next. In short, a fierce, beautiful examination of millennial life and the topics that matter most to us.

This preliminary review will be replaced with full, thoughtful review I plan to write over next few days.

An essay collection that's Fresh, Brilliant, Cerebrally Stimulating and Boundary-Expanding (for this Gen-X male, to be sure).

The New Yorker has to be proud to have Jia Tolento as its millennial cultural critic.

For the first time since I do not recall when, I am fired up about spending a few hours of my weekend revisiting several favorite parts of a book and writing a 5-star review.

"The internet reminds us on a daily basis that it is not at all rewarding to become aware of the problems that you have no reasonable hope of solving. And, more important, the internet already is what it is. It has already become the central organ of contemporary life.”

Trick Mirror is a book that contains nine essays written by Jia Tolentino and wow wow wow. Jia writes about growing up on the Internet, reality television, opinion via social media not turning into action, ecstasy, seven scams, and etc. She wrote this book between the spring of 2017 and the fall of 2018, and yet these essays still resonate in today's society. This book is incredible and I DEFINITELY RECOMMEND EVERYONE TO BUY AND READ THIS BOOK!!!

I learned so much from this book and had to highlight so many sentences because they were so good and perfectly explained how I felt about certain things. Throughout all the essays, Jia does not offer any answers but it’s great to know that I am not the only one that feels this way about a lot of things. My favorite essay was “Ecstasy,” and the reason for that is because she connects growing up in a Southern Baptist Church in Texas and Ecstasy, and it’s a trip. I also want to state that from now on, when I listen to the song “Overnight Celebrity,” I will be thinking of younger Jia wading in a pool.

*I received an advance review copy of Trick Mirror from the publisher through NetGalley; all opinions are my own.

I enjoyed every moment of this book! This collection of essays is engaging and entertaining. I have never heard of Jia Tolentino until recently and so, I read two articles she’s written and y’all, she is a bad ass!

In this collection of 9 essays, (some biography) Tolentino talks about modern society and pop culture. From her time on a reality show as a teenager (looking on YouTube for these), Fyre Festival, politics, feminism and Millennials. You name it Tolentino touched based on it in one of these essays.
I have nothing negative to say about this book. I LOVED IT!!!

Thank you, NetGalley & Random house for gifting me this copy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved these essays. I was born the same year as Jia - yet never felt a kindred to the millennial generation. Until now. She captured what it is to currently be a woman in her early 30's that I didn't know I was missing. Personal and honest.

a sharp collection of essays. for all that their subject matter is often heavy and dark in its reckoning with our dystopian world (what does it mean to be a an "authentic" self in a world where selfhood is commodified, weaponized, or used toward some end? etc.), they are delightfully readable, written with poise, wry humor, and a certain settled-ness with uncertainty that earns my trust. clearly articulated equivocation is really powerful, it's good to know someone out there is wrestling with these big issues alongside us (I'm often suspicious about those who ask questions only to answer them in low resolution). subjects tackled include (but are most certainly not limited to) media, feminism, capitalism, white male power, the performativity and subjectivity of selfhood... and how they are all inextricable from each other.

the most memorable essays for me were "Reality TV Me" and "We Come From Old Virginia" – Tolentino's reflection of her own experiences is so grounded and earnest; her ability to see her life in relation to the the current of the world around her – even in recognition that one is not always reliable in the narrative it builds for oneself – is inspiring.

sometimes her style leans toward the "discourse of the anecdote" – she very frequently refers to things outside her own prose (examples on the one hand, but also casual quips about Groupon on the other) that at times can seem a little affected. it's clear she has done her research and always makes a compelling argument but I sometimes felt that she was even profligate with her references, as if making a point by making a list, or gesturing toward something we might all be assumed to know (occasionally endearing, I'll admit).

all in all I really enjoyed this collection, which I would take altogether as a pretty compelling inquiry of the American millennial condition. I wish Jia Tolentino would be my friend – she seems to be disillusioned by many of the same things I am in our society and what better way to feel seen and connected than through shared disappointments? (perhaps, perversely, an indication of common ideals and hopes and dreams?)

This was an engaging collection of essays, sharp and entertaining and I found the time flew while reading them. I appreciate a collection that can traverse topics like Soul Cycle and wedding culture, but that can also hold my interest when talking about agency in narratives, politics, and “difficult women.” Definitely one I’d recommend picking up.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC of this book.

I've been following Jia Tolentino's writing from The Awl to Jezebel to her current position at The New Yorker, and in awe of her talent for going in depth and seeing the connections underneath the surface of the main story. This collection continues that work across nine essays, some personally-driven, some driven by the issues affecting millennials in 2019.

As a collection, this reminds me of another equally fantastic essay collection from earlier this year, Tressie McMillan Cottom's [book:Thick: And Other Essays|40365093], in the way it refuses to stay in one place, circling around 2-3 related subjects and honing in on the threads that connect them and affect us all. I love how much these essays speak to how much Jia has read and thought about these topics in forming her own thoughts - in talking about her time on Boys vs. Girls: Puerto Rico, she goes back and watches herself, something I'm not sure I'd be able to do had I appeared on early-2000s reality TV, and for many of the other essays there's a wonderfully robust list of further reading/sources at the end of the book.

I'm already a big fan, and I can't wait to see where Tolentino continues to go based on this collection. Read it and pass along to your friends.

Thank you to the publisher, via NetGalley, for providing me with a copy of this book for review. This has in no way influenced my opinion.
I heard of this book through LaineyGossip and I immediately requested this arc to try the genius writing Lainey spoke of in her opening post. I start with how I came across this title, because Tolentino's book is about millennial life through the manipulations of the internet era - a hydra that steers our choices and influences through clever algorithms. Tolentino's life experiences are all over the map, and I think the diversity of her lived experiences are what make each essay so great - I was never ready for the personal story that would tie into the larger theme of the essay based on what I learned of her life from the essay before.
I preordered a physical copy for myself perhaps two essays in, and I can't wait to recommend it to everyone once it is on shelves next month.

3.5 stars -- I am bumping this up a half star for the moments of charm and personal stylistic flair that shine through from time to time in this collection. In general, this is a perfectly enjoyable essay collection for those interested in topics surrounding pop culture, media, and gender, and I would recommend this to anyone with those interests. I'm not sure that this totally comes together as a collection, however, which keeps this from feeling like a stand out work. That said, if you've read & enjoyed Tolentino's work previously, I don't think this will let you down. Looking forward to more from this author in the future

Jia Tolentino has been described as the next big thing in essayists. The subject matter of these essays is fascinating. Yet I found much of it over-intellectualizing and rambling when more succinctly thought out ideas would have made for better writing and easier reading. The writer jumps between emotional, heartfelt, conversational renderings to academic history lessons and back again frequently. It was somewhat jarring and disrupted the flow of the essay. Overall, some incredibly astute observations and excellent history of feminism and gender parity. Recommended, although the writing is sometimes tedious.

I continue to be here for authors who speak out against choice feminism, and Tolentino gets it:

"The timidity in mainstream feminism to admit that women's choices--not jut our problems--are, in the end, political has led to a vision of "women's empowerment" that often feels brutally disempowering in the end."

This was very good. I think I mostly agree with Tolentino on major issues, which is possibly why I enjoyed it as much as I did.

I am telling you now: This book is about to be wildly popular. Currently, Jia Tolentino is a staff writer for the New Yorker and I want to live in her brain. This book is a collection of 9 essays that range in topics from when she was a teen reality star (I was laughing out loud reading this), wedding gowns, altheisure, Amazon and Trump all the way to drugs and literary heroines. Jia talked about with all of the things going on in the world, our sense of reality is often distorted, hence TRICK MIRROR. I couldn't agree more. This book will leave you entertained but also will really open your eyes.

Review will be posted on instagram tomorrow morning. 7/27. Will also post in stories on publishing day. Review just posted on goodreads.