TRICK MIRROR is a collection of essays about how various aspects of the modern world - specifically, the internet and social media - have shaped how the millennial generation sees themselves.

I've never read anything that so perfectly crystallizes the experience of my generation growing up with the full internet available to us and the way it's not only warped our sense of self but our sense of the world as a whole. A lot of pop culture essays can be light and forgettable, but Tolentino's work is dense. Deeply researched and full of supporting details, she paints a picture that is both specific to her life experiences and common to many young Americans.

And Tolentino is not just pointing out what's wild in our current internet culture. She's investigating it and interrogating it, finding threads that connect our childhoods to our teenhoods to our adulthoods. I think in particular the essay about scams puts words to something true that's always been a bit undefinable to me.

But wow, her essay "Ecstasy" might actually be one of the best essays I've ever read in my life. Get this book now.