RaveEntropy...this work is situated at a delicious intersection of cultural criticism and memoir, oscillating between humor-saturated personal diatribes and cunning excavations of cultural artifacts ... Relentlessly well-researched, the glossy and humorous quality of these essays contributes to their digestibility; their self-reflexivity perpetually swats away any overarching thesis ... to me Trick Mirror felt concerned with their investigation in a way that I appreciated both politically and emotionally. It felt invested in historicizing the present ... In holding up a mirror to our present circumstance, Tolentino doesn’t offer a clear line of action. As a reader I felt vaguely disappointed by that disavowal of a \'next step\' ... but Trick Mirror offers an insightful and multi-valent perspective on the present in a way that, in my mind, expands what can now be said on each of the topics that has been outlined here. It is rigorous, it is personal, it is elegantly crafted to contain the sharp angles of critique and the soft spots of memoir, and it shimmers with insight.
