Jia Tolentino writes from an explicitly millennial perspective, but the “generation-defi ning” forces she so ably explores in Trick Mirror (Random House, $27)—the internet, feminism, the 2016 election--have touched everyone, no matter when they were born. Blending the intimate, honest approach of a personal essayist with an experienced cultural critic’s skepticism and range, Tolentino clarifies and complicates every subject she touches, from athleisurewear and reality shows (her story of appearing in one is priceless) to “difficult women” and drug use. Calling the name of today’s game “scamming,” she draws on her own experiences with blogs, books, and a megachurch—christened by its youthful members “the Repentagon”—to dissect some of the artifi ces at work today. These are mostly webbased, but even with familiar suspects like Amazon and Facebook Tolentino adds a lot to our understanding of how these forces affect us and how they stay so powerful; her discussion of the internet as a theater without a backstage is apt and memorable, as are her expositions of how feminism still knuckles under to the “tyranny of the ideal woman” and of how intensive marketing, dating only from the nuptials of Queen Victoria, has created “traditional” weddings where, for just tens of thousands of dollars, every woman can get the royal treatment for a day.
