Now here me out: there are lots of reasons to eat vegetables. Sometimes your body is in revolt because you’ve had nothing but pizza all weekend. Sometimes you’ve made a new commitment to “take better care” of yourself. Sometimes you just really want some kale, damn it. Sometimes you just want to smother some broccoli in neon-orange-movie-theater-nacho cheese. Vegetables are good for you, vegetables are tasty, they can be prohibitively expensive- especially if fresh, but sometimes you just have to fight your way through a heaping plate of greens for the greater good, you know?
Trick Mirror is vegetables for you brain (well, more so than veggies already are for your brain, but I digress). You will consume this book and you will feel good. You will have learned things. You will have been validated. You will have laughed. You will have roared with anger, and at the end you will better than you were before you ate your veggies/read this book. You will have to choke down some slimy artichoke hearts, but you’ll also get to chow down on pan-fried bacon and Brussels sprouts.
Jia Tolentino writes like your cooler older sister. We are the same age, but she just has that older sister vibe. I loved her work with The Toast and The Hairpin (RIP!!!!!), and I was thrilled when I learned that she was fast on her way to an essay collection. Again, I snatched the book up but left it sit on my nightstand for months- I knew it would be smart, funny, and acid-sharp, and I was worried that it would make me feel like I wasn’t living up to my own potential. Well, I still felt that way a bit, but that’s my problem- not Jia’s. It’s OK though- because she digs into that whole mess. There is a lot to unpack in here about how we see our selves, how the world sees us, and how we want to be seen. This, more so than anything else that I’ve read by choice or heard against my will, the most accurate depiction of what it is like to be a *GASP* MILLENNIAL.
Oh yeah- and on page 71 there’s a paragraph where the word “queef” is used ten times.