Thanks to Henry Holt & NetGalley for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book (sort of?) although it's worth noting that it made me feel like I wasn't smart enough to understand what was going on. It's a multilayered experience, with 3 distinct parts that each seem to contradict the previous section.

Finally, several months after reading it, I read an article that "explains" the ending, and I guess I now get it? Anyway, I chose it for my book club and I feel confident it will be an interesting, if polarizing, discussion!

Trust Exercise is itself a trust exercise that something in the story will improve. I found the characters, while well-drawn, beyond the scope of my interest.

Honestly, this was really confusing for me. I wanted to enjoy it but found myself skimming and not understanding. Hoping to revisit this at a later time for a reread.

At first I though this book was just the wrong book for me as a reader. But now, reading some of the Goodreads reviews, I see I'm not alone in not being a fan. Perhaps I'm not smart enough, but I just didn't get how this novel would work (switching perspectives, going back and forth in time, etc.).

There was an interesting setting - a high school for the performing arts where students are pushed to their limits in building intimacy and confidence. The teachers definitely push past some boundaries. Sticking with this theme would have made for a unique premise. Choi is talented at creating memorable characters that feel authentic.

I won't go into the twists that take place in case someone else wants to read it still, but I felt like the huge moments in the book ended up leaving me confused. There's also a lot of sexual content that never seems necessary to the plot. Overall, this felt like more of a slog to get through with me hating pretty much every page.

This is an interesting book and will appeal to those who like literary fiction.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

The story begins at a highly competitive high school for the performing arts. The place is New York, the time the early 1980's. Mr. Kingsley is the lodestone around which the drama department revolves. He uses his talent and access to force the students in his program to confront themselves and their fears, to trust each other and their talent. Two students stand out. David is handsome and rich but hesitant. Sarah is an outsider, her contributions to the plays wardrobe mistress rather than onstage performer. The two share a summer romance and then spend the next two years in a love-hate relationship that those around them recognize but who no one knows how to move forward.
Then the book shifts. We see the same events from the viewpoint of Karen twenty years later. She was another student who stayed behind the scenes. After a successful career as an executive assistant and organizer, she returns home to the city where they all grew up. David is back in town also, working now as a producer and director. Sarah has become an author and has a hugely successful book out. When Karen reconnects with Sarah at an author signing in Los Angeles, their reminiscences lead to Sarah agreeing to come to the debut of David's next play, which Karen is starring in. What happens there is surprising yet in some ways long overdue.

This novel won the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction. It explores the relationships between teenagers with their overheated dramatic friendships. It also delves into the trust that teachers demand from their students and how easily that trust can be abused. Although none of the characters are particularly easy to relate with, their stories are fascinating and show the power of friendship and betrayal. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

Engrossing, surprising and riveting. I was truly shocked by where this book went and I found it to be an incredible reading experience.

I've read everything Choi has written and my expectations were high with this book. I loved it best when itv jumped ahead in perspective.

I found this book convoluted and confusing. I’m giving the book three stars because I liked the premise.

An amazing, amazing book that I think everyone should read. The writing is out of this world delightful.

Ah geez. I had such hopes for this one, but in the end I was relieved when I finished it. Thanks go to Net Galley and Henry Holt for the review copy, and to Seattle Bibliocommons for the audio book that helped me push through to the end.

Conceptually, it sounds like a winner. (And to be fair, it did win the National Book Award.) Students enrolled in a citywide magnet school live in a cloistered bubble, isolated from the city—and the world—around them. The time is the 1980s. The drama teacher, Mr. Kingsley, has an oversized role and influence in their lives, not only academically but emotionally. Boundaries, not so much. And when Sarah and David fall for each other, and then un-fall, Mr. Kingsley serves as a sort of puppet master, telling them what to do. The same applies to friendships turned sour.

The premise is believable. This reviewer recalls a respected public school with a strong performing arts program that operated in real life in the late 1970s. Some of the teachers didn’t seem to know about boundaries, and the students—of which I was one—never complained, because it made us feel like respected adults. A student and teacher had an affair while I was there, and they married after she graduated. They remain so. And so when I saw the teaser for this book, I was ready to jump right in, because it spoke to me.
Sadly, it stopped speaking to me by the twenty-five percent mark. I tried restarting a couple of times, but I hit a wall. Finally, determined not to miss out on an award-winning novel, I ordered the audio version from the library and listened to it while I sewed my family’s first set of COVID masks. Both were grim tasks.

While there must be art present here for Choi to win such a prestigious award, the plot is convoluted and difficult to follow, and the characters, which are the heart and soul of this novel, never come alive. In the last half it becomes clear that we’ve had an unreliable narrator all along, but if anything, it makes the story muddier.
This might be a one star read for me, but I still say the premise is meaty, and for that I tack on the second star.

Overall, I can’t recommend this book.

The quality of the writing isn't in doubt. But this very much feels like an exercise of willful abstruseness on Choi's part in order to invite more complex projections on the part of the reader. It's not an inherently problematic strategy and has been executed brilliantly elsewhere (both of John Darnielle's novels, off the top of my head, but Choi chooses to focus almost exclusively on character interiority and the slippery presentation that manifests through first-person navigation. As such, much more responsibility should be on Choi to develop her themes/characters rather than to wax so imprecisely right on their periphery: the cyclical nature of abuse and the unreliability of our own perceptions/perspectives are both fully rendered, though these are hardly brilliant or novel enough observations to carry the weight of this novel's density. Choi's approach is deeply assured but also fundamentally reliant on the hint of profundity rather than its actualization.

Deserves all of the praise. As a former theatre student myself, I was instantly taken back to my days of studying acting and developing a deep intimacy with my classmates. I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second half, but Trust Exercise is definitely worth adding to your TBR pile.

Choi is not simply a writer, but must be distinguished in a world where writing seems like a practice that delivers a product to be mindlessly consumed. Choi is an arteur. She plays with plot, with the reliability of the narrator, and with scope, requiring the reader to work different muscles to see the entirety of the work. Trust Exercise was not easy to read, but maybe it is a true simulation of the psyche - the shifting authority figures, the relational (and theatrical) drama of community, the self-doubt. For the experimental ways Choi attempts to reimagine story, she is unflinching and sharp.

Another intriguing and engrossing novel by Susan Choi. Interesting plot. Highly recommended reading.

Susan Choi's Trust Exercise won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2019. It is appropriate, as when I think of Trust Exercise, I view it as one of those novels that is buzz-worthy in the literary world, but holds no real merit with actual readers. I am disappointed that I have taken this stance, as I had high expectations for this novel that purports that not everything is as it seems within the pages of this book. I expected a tightly woven, intricately-plotted, head-spinning piece of psychological fiction that would stick with me long after I had closed the cover. Instead, I am left muddled and confused by what I have read.

Trust Exercise is so verbose and pretentious, it requires readers to examine every single word and its meaning to gain any sort of context by the end of each paragraph. I found myself hopelessly lost throughout much of this novel, and knew it was not the book for me from the very first page. Potential readers should approach this book with the knowledge that reading this novel is no cake walk, and will require great effort on the part of the reader to comprehend and find enjoyment in what is being read. Recommended for those who run in literary circles and readers who enjoy dissecting and discussing books.

Thank you to NetGalley & Henry Holt & Company for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of Trust Exercise seems straightforward. A group of teens attending a prestigious arts high school in the South in the early 1980s. Two of them, David and Sarah, fall in love and then, very badly, as only 15-year olds can do, fall out of love. Their drama teacher is the charismatic Mr. Kingsley who encourages the personal drama between all of them and especially between David and Sarah. This continues throughout high school until a summer when everything falls apart after an unsupervised party at Kingsley’s home. Fade to black.

Here’s what you need to know so far. This was Part One of Trust Exercise. It lasts for almost 175 pages…as one long chapter with few paragraphs and a multitude of descriptors. A plethora of words, of which only half are needed to get the point across.

Part Two begins with a narrator named “Karen”—and yes, she is designated in quotes because that is not her real name. What follows, after an interminable explanation from Karen about Karen is probably the key reason Trust Exercise is getting 5 stars from some readers, because it is damn clever. Part One is fictitious. Part Two is the present day and Karen is going to debunk every single aspect of the lies and misdirection in Part One. This is a great idea. Very meta. I won’t be a complete bitch and reveal who the author is, but it’s someone we met in Part One.

Here’s what you need to know about Part Two: it’s told in the 3rd person (Karen) but with sudden interjections in the 1st person. Huh? Still no chapters and numerous paragraphs like this one:

Many words are both nouns and verbs. Present/present. Insult/insult. Object/object. Permit/permit. A list of such words, compiled for the business traveler not fluent in English, is pinned to my bulletin board. It’s meant to illustrate not just the words’ versatility but the fact that in each word the emphasis shifts the same way, from first syllable to the second…

A grammar lesson? Really? Why do I care? It’s been made abundantly clear that Karen feels wronged by Part One and Part Two is going to be her retribution, but this word slog crushes any potential fun and enjoyment in the prospect. The only redeeming factor in Part Two is the final sentence. One sentence, after pages and pages of mind-numbing rhetoric. But it’s a beauty. The kind of thing you’d want to toss off at someone who’d wronged you after you’d come back and destroyed them.

But wait, there’s more! Yes, a Part Three, but it is extraneous, except to wrap up an earlier plot point. I’ll leave it at that.

There’s a point when ambition becomes grandiosity and rather than drawing the reader in, it pushes them away. Choi leaves that point in the distance with what feels like her delight in her own intelligence—something I’m willing to concede to her. She may be smarter than me, but this much verbiage becomes a weapon and defeats the purpose of great fiction. The meaning and the reader are bludgeoned to death. There was a kernel of a fascinating plot twist in Trust Exercise, but ultimately, this was an exercise in trust that did not pay off for me.

Honestly, this was really confusing for me. I wanted to delve deeper but I spent a lot of time ciphering through passages that it became a bit exhausting for me. Its loved by many so this is just a minority opinion. I am still intrigued enough to come back to it in the future.

The unconventional structure isn't for everyone, but if you're willing to be challenged, and to give this book your full attention, it's well worth it. An outstanding ride, with a lot to think about after you're done.

This book has an intriguing meta format in which the various parts inform each other. The first part is a coming of age story (although the characters mostly already seem "of age") and the second pulls back the curtain. The third part is a coda.