We trick ourselves into a lot of things: whether that's finding ways to be more productive, to eat healthier, or to generally achieve the life we want to live. But, turns out, we trick ourselves so deeply that it's hard to pull apart what we do because we want to, and what we do because of societal constructs. Luckily, Jia Tolentino takes a stab pulling these constructs apart for us. She calls it a "trick mirror . . . the illusion of flawlessness as well as the self-flagellating option of constantly finding fault." In this collection of cleverly-crafted essays, Tolentino analyzes what it means to be human in the digital era, the ways in which we present ourselves, and how all of our lives are full of self-delusions.Jia Tolentino is a staff writer at The New Yorker whose essays in Trick Mirror focus on self-delusion. Previously, she was the deputy editor at Jezebel and a contributing editor at the Hairpin. She grew up in Texas, attended the University of Virginia, served in the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan, and received an MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan. She was the writer in residence at the University of Iowa in February, where I personally got to listen to her talk about her writing process and the publishing and writing industries.
Just as a note before I get into the review itself. I wrote this review weeks ago, before everything with Jia Tolentino's parents got media attention on Twitter. The entire debate behind this scandal is whether we can separate the art from the artist -- and this is a debate that's been in the public consciousness for years and years. Everything I wrote below are my opinions pertained to the work, and I have not edited to change my opinions in the face of the scandal. I hate feeling like I have to add this disclaimer, and I'm not saying we should separate the art from the artist (my own opinions on this are nuanced, indeed). I want to make clear I wrote this review well in advance before publishing it on this blog, and hence my opinions below did not take into account the present day scandal. If you want to read Jia's response to the scandal, click here, and if you want more discussion on this scandal, you can find a lot of commentary primarily on Twitter.
This collection of 9 essays might seem all over the place. Tolentino goes from diving deep into her reality-TV and Houston-living past all the way to the broad Internet and the literary history of female protagonists. And yet, the collection is tied together by the poignant desire to understand the self, and the deceptions of self. Tolentino connects every essay with the story of herself, and how an event in her life catalyzed her desire to understand (or, at least, to write) something bigger that event stands for. The essays were also connected because a lot of her critiques overlap (that of feminism and capitalism and social media presence all tie together and can be seen as bigger threads throughout the novel). The essays were also lined up perfectly: readers jump back and forth between Tolentino's past and present, with interludes that apply to anyone's pasts or presents. Whether the lineup be a publisher or author decision, it was cleverly done. It keeps readers engaged with each essay, and eliminates any kind of monotony associated with a chronological order.
The essays themselves follow a similar kind of path. We often begin with an event specific in Tolentino's life, and from those personal anecdotes, she draws the larger implication of whatever she's commenting on. She also pulls on other people's experiences, whether those experiences are similar or different than her own. We dive really deep into whatever topic Tolentino has chosen, and when the essay is over, that means we have so much to think about. Do we agree with Tolentino or not? Does that even matter? And, what are we going to do about this issue?
Tolentino's writing has inspired a team of college creatives to examine themselves and curate the best magazine possible, and her New Yorker essay even swayed me towards writing about my own brief cheerleading career. She is a widely influential character and opportunities to read her writing, to thus better understand oneself, should not be taken for granted.
I'd originally wanted to talk about my favorite essay, but when I finished Trick Mirror, I decided I couldn't choose a favorite: they were all brilliant and clever in their own ways. So, I've decided to do a paragraph on all the essays, and what I enjoyed about them.
The I in the Internet
The first essay in the collection opens up with personal anecdotes that also pull on other people's experiences and big news stories for an immersive read. Tolentino uses all this evidence to draw larger implications, but not before drawing all the stories apart to understand their cores. She analyzes the complexities of what living in the digital really means from all of us. Tolentino doesn't try to separate herself from the problem, or even put herself above it: she makes sure her place (the "I" in the "Internet" so to speak) is well defined so that readers feel connected to her and the topic of this piece. Tolentino doesn't offer an answer of how to live, but a lot of things to think about. She knows we might be more cognizant about how the Internet affects us, but she also recognizes that what she says might never change our behavior about it. For the first essay in the collection, this was a great choice because it introduces us to Tolentino, her writing style, and what she plans to do for the rest of the collection: she's not here to offer complete answers, but to expose the delusion in all parts of life.
Reality TV Me
In this essay, Tolentino reveals her best kept secret. When she told us what it was, I wondered why? Tolentino moves through time here in an interesting way: in one font, she summarizes the events of the TV show she was on, and uses those actions to stand in contrast of the actual text of the essay. I enjoy how the essay is her grappling with this secret, how she talked to producers and contestants in the present. She's trying to understand how her TV self and her present-day self might not be that different. There's not a lot in this essay someone might relate to at first. But if we try to understand that our TV-self would be the self we present to others, we'll find that this is yet another self-delusion: we are our TV-selves, just polished. This essay helps us better understand Tolentino, and gives readers greater confidence to dive into the rest of the essays.
Always Be Optimizing
This was actually the first Tolentino essay I ever read. It was so revealing, the way Tolentino exposed the self-delusion in this essay. As I read, I was thinking about everything I'd been doing to fit this "perfect woman" ideal, and realized that a lot of women might feel the same way about the unachievability of this ideal. I particularly enjoyed how much detail Tolentino used to tell her own story and how it all ties back to the capitalism we experience every day. This essay is vivid in a way that we can put our own experiences on top of hers, to mirror them so that we can see what Tolentino does. My biggest takeaway was that we understand our identities and our responses to society through the identity of our countries. The way Tolentino made it seem was that our responses were not our own. This essay was definitely food for thought on how we live day-by-day.
Pure Heroines
I absolutely adored this essay. Tolentino takes us through literary space and time. She dove into the literary heroine identity, where heroines come from, and the trajectories these literary women take as the actual world around them revolves and shifts. Everything that happened to these fictional women flexed in relation and because of men (fictional and real). At the end, it becomes about representation, and seeing someone in literary history that looks like you, but also not -- with heroes, we use them as role models, and a model to jump off of to make the world better. Tolentino calls on us as readers to be better than these characters, and to change the world so that someday there will be characters like all of us in the stories. As an avid reader, this essay was one of my favorites because it helped me understand something about the literary world that I'd known, but hadn't ever faced head-on.
Ecstasy
Tolentino drew parallels between ecstasy and religion in this essay, and how music bridges the gap. Tolentino discusses her own experiences with drugs in this essay, but what matters most is the experience she has when she's on drugs, and how it's similar to the experience of religion. Tolentino grapples with religion and explaining that part of her past for most of the essay: what it was like at her church, what living in a religious Houston was like. So while the essay is titled after the drug, the essay is her trying to reconcile with the part of her that lived in this religious system for so long, and how drugs helped her find that peace.
The Story of a Generation in Seven Scams
This essay is exactly what it hints at. By going through the seven scams she chooses, Tolentino describes the behavior of her generation, and how the generation is not to blame. Tolentino uses these seven scams to show how her generation was taught that scammers win, and thus how the behavior of her generation is the fault of the scammers, in a way. To draw this conclusion, she takes an intimate look at the seven biggest scams of the millennial generation, and how each of those scammers, in the end, won. Then, she makes this statement that her generation, basically learned from this culture, so what does this say about the scammers? What does this say about her generation? What will this say about the generations that come after them? This essay, as you could probably tell, was immensely thought-provoking.We Come from Old Virginia
Another one of my favorite essays, Tolentino depicts her college application process and the rose-colored glasses she wore throughout college, something a lot of alumni and college students could relate to. Then, she takes us through how those glasses were ripped off after she graduated because of the scandal are her alma mater, the University of Virginia. Those glasses were violently torn away when a writer for the Rolling Stones exposed how a young woman was raped at University of Virginia. Tolentino tackles a lot in this essay: the Greek systems, college as an institution, UVA's history, the history of rape and its media presence, and race. Tolentino does a lot of brilliant things in this essay, and includes a lot of commentary and critiques on everything I just listed, but my favorite had to be her commentary on the self-delusion of story telling. My favorite line from this whole book would be: "[Erdely] acted as if the story she believed in, that she thought she was working for, was already real." Tolentino analyzes the story of a rape that's actually full of lies and delusion that we want to believe in, because we believe the truth, and the truth is that stories of rapes don't always get the attention they deserve, and people want their traumas to be recognized and righted (if possible).
The Cult of the Difficult Woman
In this essay, Tolentino focuses less on herself and more on the women throughout the ages and today to talk about feminism. She takes some time defining what exactly a "difficult woman" is, and the forms they've taken across history. In this essay, Tolentino depends a lot on outside experiences of pop culture icons we all recognize to comment on another thing we all recognize: sexist behavior. She seamlessly works from this definition of the "difficult woman" into noting how it has taken form in the women of today. Tolentino analyzes the Kardashians, Britney Spears, and the women of the Trump administration. This essay is interesting because it's a commentary on feminism in the fact of other institutions: politics, the patriarchy, journalism, and social media to name a few. At the end of the essay, we're faced with how we view women, and how women end up joining this "cult" whether they wanted to or not.
I Thee Dread
The last essay in the collection, Tolentino tackles a whole new institution: marriage. She starts with all the weddings she's attended, and her own feelings on the subject, before diving deeply into the history and implications surrounding weddings and marriage. I learned something new in this essay, which is also another one of my favorites in the collection. What was so spectacular about this essay was that Tolentino truly made her feelings about weddings clear, with every single description, even if she wasn't talking explicitly about her feelings. This essay, like all the others, felt like a conversation. Tolentino was expressing how she felt and what her decisions were about weddings and marriage, and imparting important thoughts and knowledge on readers, always tying it back to the delusions surrounding it all.
*This review is also published on my Goodreads page*
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