Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino

“Church never felt much more like virtue than drugs did, and drugs never felt much more sinful than church,” writes New Yorker staffer Jia Tolentino in one of nine essays in her new collection. In the piece, she uses her own experiences with the evangelical Christian church, Houston screw music, and the drug ecstasy to tease out unexpected cultural connections. That amalgam is her signature, whether she’s writing about incels, Cracker Barrel, or the genre of the essay itself.