Trick Mirror

Pure Heroines, Tolentino's essay on childhood literary heroines, draws the most skepticism, several reviewers call it a rehash of freshman-level analysis that mostly summarizes books everyone already read. The UVA fraternity essay and the chapter surveying seven American scams, Fyre Festival included, cover ground documentaries and prior coverage already flattened, and one reader dismisses the whole book as a “Sparknotes summary of something that happened,” another calling it a “collection of high-functioning book reports.” A widely read critical review argues her essays keep circling back to her “own life and feelings” instead of pushing the analysis further. One frustrated reader just wants her to “GET TO THE POINT.”