If there is such a thing, though, Tolentino certainly comes closer than most. In the book’s third essay, “Always Be Optimizing,” Tolentino wonders why it is that people - women in particular - are always “compelled to optimize,” hurtling towards perfection only as it seems to get further and further away. Trick Mirror is a book that only a millennial could write, but one who is smart enough to be able to see our lives objectively, and thus critique us with ease. In a more intimate register, she recounts how, as a young adult, she found the thin line between religious ecstasy and chemical ecstasy (that is, our beloved club drug MDMA). Tolentino lays bare the 2019 cultural touchstones of Fyre Festival and Outdoor Voices. The book flip flops artfully between apt cultural criticism/reportage and personal essay. There is much more sharp prose and startling honesty to feast on. So begins Trick Mirror, the debut essay collection from New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino. It’s possible I painted an elaborate mural instead.” I wanted to see the way I would see in a mirror. In this book, I tried to undo their acts of refraction. “These are the prisms through which I have come to know myself.
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