Trick Mirrors
Order the book through your local bookstore, online, or check your local library for digital and physical loans.
Context Links
- The Creepy Dissonance of Reading Trick Mirror in a ‘Self-Care’ Book Club (LitHub)
- Jia Tolentino Answers Your Questions About ‘Trick Mirror’ (PBS)
- In Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino uncovers the great con of millennial life (Vox)
- Identity Shaping on Social Media: On Jia Tolentino’s “Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion” (LA Review of Books)
Guiding Questions from (PBS NewsHour)
- The subheading of Tolentino’s book is “reflections on self-delusion.” What do you think the author means by “self-delusion,” and how does she consider it in her essays?
- Did this book make you think differently about how you use technology in your day-to-day life?
- If you read “How to Do Nothing” by Jenny Odell, our December 2021 read, do you see similarities and differences in the arguments around Internet culture?
- “The con is in the DNA of this country,” Tolentino writes, referring to everything from rising college tuition debt to the 2008 housing crash as evidence of the ways powerful institutions “scam” Americans. Did you identify with this idea? Why or why not?
- While the author is deeply critical of late capitalism and its impact on U.S. society, did any of her essays leave you feeling hopeful?