liv’s Reviews > Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion > Status Update

"the cult of the difficult woman" was a strange one. not sure how to feel.

"we come from old virginia" is an extremely powerful meditation on the nature and narrativization of sexual assault, and something i deeply needed to read as i confront for the first time that something happened to me. "i wish i had known ... that the story didn't need to be clean, and it didn't need to be satisfying ... and once i realized that, i would be able to see what was true."

back on the grind after a brief hiatus; struggled fo start and really get into "the story of a generation told in seven scams", but it was a solid essay. thought about dropping this book but i'm committed. can't wait to get back to my fiction, though.

"ecstasy" - pretty good essay on the intersection of drugs and religion, with some particularly memorable lines

GOD what a fucking good essay. "pure heroines". tolentino's writing on women in literature, the social conventions that trap them, the freedom found in being narrativized by one another, all of it. so many excerpts from authors that had me instantly curious to read their full works (as can be seen in my status updates). i would like to read "the second sex" by simone de beauvoir as well but it's so longggg. we'll see

"always be optimizing" was an essay that i struggled to get through. maybe because i've spent so much time discarding this beauty and wellness culture from my life already. at least it gave me a couple essay ideas.

tolentino's second essay, reality tv and me, is both an interesting thinkpiece on the nature of niche reality television, the early 2000s, and which versions of ourselves and reality we construct vs. what's actually real