Céline’s Reflections: Trick Mirror
Title: Trick Mirror
Author: Jia Tolentino
Medium: Audiobook
Motivation for reading: Recommended by a former roommate
Reflections & Takeaways:
A few months back, my then-roommate recommended Jia Tolentino’s book to me. Of course, she nonchalantly added that Jia was a graduate of the University of Virginia (my then-roommate is not a UVA alumnae). She didn’t need to tell me twice! To make me even more excited about reading the book, we watched an interview on Youtube of Jia Tolentino that had taken place at a local bookstore back in August. It was really neat to see Jia in the interview, as that it gave me a preview of who she is a person and provided some context about her and her book.
In her interview, she was articulate and genuine — someone that I would honestly be a little intimidated to talk to myself. She comes across as extremely smart, emotionally intelligent, super cool, chill, outgoing, and the life of the party! In short, someone I admire for being incredibly well-rounded and accomplished. Despite her impressive credentials, her essays were relatable on many levels, and I was grateful that she was able to articulate emotions and thoughts that I’ve struggled to verbalize.
It turns out that Jia Tolentino and I overlapped at the University of Virginia for one academic year. She was a Fourth Year when I was a First Year. It blows my mind that we lived in the same town and went to classes on the same campus for nine months! Jia and I shared a world in a specific place and time.
One of her essays she references events that happened at UVA and in Charlottesville during and soon after my time as a student. She specifically discusses events that negatively impacted women. I felt like I was listening to an old friend talking about our temporary mutual home during our college days as she dropped the names of locations including “The Corner” and “Rugby Road”, followed by the names of college-aged women whose lives were cut tragically short while visiting or living in Charlottesville, including Morgan Harrington, Yeardley Love, and Hannah Graham. It was a weird sensation to fall back into the vernacular that I have carefully packed and stored away in a shoebox in the back of my closet in memory of my college days. I thought was just part of my little world back in college. It was surreal in the sense that it felt that someone had pulled out my box and published my memories to share with the world. Maybe I connected at a personal level because those words resonated with me in context of a specific place and time in my life. Jia’s words were also a reminder about how these events hit so close to home. Jia was talking about my world too. Or rather our world, one that we shared. Literally. For many people readers, it is about another school, another campus, another world with similarities to their college experience but not their university. For me, Jia described home.
Jia’s essays were so dense, I had to slow down my audiobook reading speed from 1.5x to 1.25x. She also reads her essays, which I absolutely loved because I had heard her in the interview but also because I always think it adds an additional layer of authenticity when you hear the author read his or her own words. I thought she was so good, I could almost hear her reading my future book! (Now I’m to writing a book?!? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here…)
I love how she is able to write these long essays — with so many layers, references, examples, with smooth transitions from story to story — all to prove her point. She wonders through her thoughts masterfully and with intention to walk you through her reasoning. I strive to write like her one day and truly admire her beautiful gift with words. Her transitions are flawless, and her writing leaves me wanting more. She weaves anecdotes and points that I totally live and see all around me today. She is talking my language and in my world.
I read the book in admiration since she covers hard and controversial topics. She lays it out but writes in a tone that comes across as neither preaching to her audience nor forcing her ideals on the reader. She provides more of a commentary and her observations of the world, pointing out the contradictions, recognizing the complexity, and admitting she doesn’t know the answers and articulates her confusion navigating life’s complexities. Hearing her thoughts on the topics she discusses felt therapeutic for me, and I’m sure it was a relief for her to put it in writing.
Books that I made connections with while reading this book:
Know My Name by Chanel Miller — A memoir written by Chanel Miller was the young woman who was assaulted by a Stanford student athlete.
