Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino

31 reviews

owenwilsonbaby's review

hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

‘The nature of a revelation is that you don't have to re-experience it; you don't even have to believe whatever is revealed to hang on to it for as long as you want. In the seventies, researchers believed that MDMA treatment would be discrete and limited—that once you got the message, as they put it, you could hang up the phone. You would be better for having listened. You would be changed. They don't say this about religion, but they should.’

I really enjoyed this, particularly the essays ‘The I in Internet,’ ‘Ecstasy,’ ‘The Story of a Generation in Seven Scams,’ and ‘We Come From Old Virginia.’ Tolentino’s writing style is sharp and her voice is compelling. She often articulated feelings I’ve had about the internet, for example, with shocking ease and extraordinary understanding, in a way that I never could. 

I struggled with one small part at the end of ‘The Cult of the Difficult Woman,’ where I felt there was a less evenly-weighted mixture of grace and criticism directed towards Hillary Clinton - it felt very idolising and a bit uncomfortable to read when the rest of the book was so nuanced, thoughtful and critical. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Violence, Racism, and Rape

phretta98's review

funny informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Racism

camoo3032's review against another edition

challenging reflective medium-paced

3.75

The first half was a bit of a struggle to get through but I thoroughly enjoyed the second half. My biggest criticism would be that she often recounts information or includes personal tales that are tangential to the point that she's trying to make. I also fear that aspects of this book will lose their relevance the further away we get from the Trump Administrative 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Drug use, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Racism, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, and Sexism

Moderate: Suicide, Blood, Murder, Pregnancy, and Violence

Minor: Body shaming, Genocide, Colonisation, Domestic abuse, Kidnapping, Abortion, Addiction, Bullying, Child abuse, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Sexual content, Transphobia, Classism, Slavery, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Infidelity, Death, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Pedophilia, Religious bigotry, War, and Fire/Fire injury

hello_lovely13's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, and Sexual harassment

amyvl93's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

Essay collections are a tricky beast - as with any collection of writing there will be some that resonate, and some that hit a little less closer to home.

Jia Tolentino is a super talented writer, whose work I've read numerous times over the years, and I was excited to finally become the last millennial on earth to pick up this book. Trick Mirror has essays that cover reality TV, scamming, thoughts on weddings and broader internet culture.

Strangely enough as someone who loves a bit of pop culture criticism, Tolentino's essays on pop culture were less engaging for me, perhaps as this collection is a few years old, many of her thoughts have been reflected, shared and adapted elsewhere.

The two essays that were highlights for me were 'Ecstasy' - about Tolentino's relationship with religion and drug use and in particular, 'We Come from Old Virginia' - an essay that looks at the aftermath of the infamous Rolling Stone article about the young woman who claimed she was gang raped, a story that was later found to be false, but Tolentino's sensitive telling of a culture of covering up and/or acceptance of sexual harassment and assault is excellent. It is probably worth reading the collection for those two essays alone - and for the very honest & cringey reflections on Tolentino's brief moment of teenage reality TV stardom.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Xenophobia

aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

I listened to this pretty quickly. Liked some parts much more than others. Some of the writing got a little drag-y, and I noticed I zoned out in some parts because of it. I don't think I would've liked it if I physically read it instead of listening to it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Drug use, Misogyny, Rape, Alcohol, Sexism, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

mengzhenreads's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

Super informative and really engaging, I definitely learned a lot from this book. I think sometimes it definitely took a while to get to some of the main ideas of some of the essays, but overall they were still really interesting and enjoyable for me to read about.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Misogyny, and Sexism

Minor: War and Stalking

gellyreads's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Rape, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Ableism, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Misogyny, Drug abuse, Drug use, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Addiction, Rape, and Sexism

stargirlmolly's review

informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use, Sexual harassment, Sexism, and Sexual assault

Minor: Rape

issyd23's review

funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

3.0

Reality tv and me and pure heroines we’re my favourite essays. Writing is accessible. Essays are easy to read and entertaining but intellectually add nothing new to the conversation. 3⭐️

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment and Sexual assault