Hey everyone. At some point, publishers of essay books realized that they needed to make the word essay really small on the book cover. That way you don't know till it's already too late. It's kind of like how the lady at the park this week first offered me her extra pizza before making clear she wants me to become a Baptist. Well, I'm so glad I was deceived by this book cover because today's book is the excellent

trick mirror by Gia Tolentino.

And this is The Book Pile, a podcast about the best of books and the worst of books.

If this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. We hope you'll also check out our

back catalog where there's something for everyone,

unless you love Twilight or the Da Vinci Code, in which case you're not going to like our

deep analysis. It will engage you for sure. I'm Kellanerski, and I'm a comic, a father,

and if I wrote a book called Trick a Mirror, I would just have the cover of it be a mirror. So it would trick you into thinking you were going to read about yourself.

And I'm David Vance. Kellan, I didn't tell you this ahead of time, but this book's actually a half roast for me. I know I keep doing this. I thought her essays were really well

written, but I do have to knock her for not using MLA format. Like, oh, and her essays didn't have

a thesis, three supporting premises, and a conclusion. So I had to grade them kind of harshly.

And then I sent that grade to her parents house.

Is it really half a roast though? No, I love this book. Okay.

The irony of that is that I am going to spend a third of one of my points roasting it. So

I was about to be like me too. But, Kellyn, the anger I feel as an adult,

realizing that professional essay writers don't use MLA format, don't follow that five-paragraph

structure. What were we practicing for? Why were the rules so rigid?

Like essays were treated like haikus, where you had to nail it exactly right.

And then we grow up, and it's all just about like style and complexity and interest and having a good hook.

None of that mattered in Mrs. Beck's class.

I could name you a dozen people on Twitter who each have tens of millions of followers,

and they don't even know when to capitalize letters.

...