TRICK MIRROR by Jia Tolentino

TRICK MIRROR is a razor sharp collection of nine essays that illuminate the invisible incentives that have shaped our lives in the internet age. Covering topics as seemingly disconnected as digital culture, modern religion, reality tv, scammers, drugs, and sexual assault, Jia Tolentino weaves a linear narrative that’s hard to put down—and nearly impossible not to recognize in the weeks after you finish.

The book helped me understand the forces I may recognize but have never been forced to endure, shining a new light on the internal and external pressures placed on women in this new generation and others before it. As Tolentino writes, “The choice of this era is to be destroyed or to morally compromise ourselves in order to be functional—to be wrecked, or to be functional for reasons that contribute to the wreck.”

— Recommended by Stephen