Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion

“To communicate an identity requires some degree of self-delusion”

Jia is talented, she writes so well. I’m glad she’s put this book together, and I’m glad there is hype around it, because what she discusses (for the most part) is important! This book is about our current culture paradigm around topics of beauty, feminism, religion, etc… each told in its own essay written by Jia.

Their is an entire chapter dedicated to Beauty, Lululemon, the rise of the work out class culture, the perfect body etc.. was eye-opening. It’s good that we diversify more now on what is beauty but its bad that society still values ‘beauty’. Rather, society should de-escalate by making beauty matter less.

She even gets into the rise of modern feminism and relates to it from a literary perspective. We’ve lost the Elizabeth Bennets (from Pride and Prejudice) in literature these days. Then there’s Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina, both commit suicide. Jia juxtaposes the two literary icons because of their ‘unhappy’ marriages which is a reflection of not being able to achieve what they want because of the society they live in. It was a bit more academic of an essay, but it definitely got me (a reader) interested.

This book probably could have done without the second essay about a reality tv show Jia was in.. it was the only weak part of this, in my opinion.

There’s a good reason why this has a lot of attention right now, even from Barack Obama. Recommend reading soon, as it’s also part of the zeitgeist.