This pains me to say, because I like Jia Tolentino a lot. Here is who I recommend this book for: Anyone who has been in a coma for the last ten to fifteen years a person who just discovered the internet, or perhaps only recently learned how to read someone over the age of 70 or under the age of 10 who has a suddenly discovered interest in small and generally feminist happenings of recent years. So who is this book for? Surely readers of The New Yorker also know these things?Īnyways, I never thought i'd say this, but, yes, Jia Tolentino, please tell me more about your year in Kyrgyzstan. like 10% of the book is unfortunately just summarising extremely well-known narratives like the birth of Facebook (we've all watched the social network 10 times baby), which, while I understand is necessary for her to be able to then make her point about said narrative, is, to me, ultimately totally redundant because i agree with, and have already independently thought the same things about, the narrative. Like maybe the target demographic is people who don't know these things? I agreed with it all way too much, to the point where I was wondering why I was even reading this.

4 of these essays were essentially just saying things everyone knows by quoting/rearranging/summarising a lot of secondary sources - very lukewarm takes on feminism and modern life that don't provoke thought as much as make you go 'yeah lol'. I think there really is an inherent difference between the kind of writing you do for the Internet (thinkpieces, cultural criticism tied to news cycles and more importantly to deadlines) vs the kind of writing that deserves to be printed into a book. Which is funny because I used to get kind of annoyed at the way she would unnecessarily drop in details about her life into unrelated articles à la girl-who-went-to-Barthelona. but only like 3 of the essays in here were good: the ones where she reflects on her own life. I feel awful terrible giving such a low review because i was so so so excited for this to the point where I refused to read any press so I could have a pure unmediated experience.

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino