Winner of the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction. 'Electrifying' (People) 'Masterly' (The Guardian) 'Dramatic and memorable' (The New Yorker)
'An alchemical work that blends truth and art into a heady, addictive brew' Atlantic
Sarah and David are in love - the obsessive, uncertain love of teenagers on the edge of adulthood. They have just started their first term at a performing arts school, where the rules are made by their magnetic drama instructor. Enclosing his students in a rarefied bubble where performance is everything, Mr Kingsley initiates them into a dangerous game that blurs the boundary between teacher and students.
Two decades on we learn that what we were told about these teenagers' lives is not completely true, but not completely false either. The real story surrounding Sarah, David and their fellow students is larger and darker than we imagined, and the consequences have lasted a lifetime.
Trust Exercise is an enthralling, captivating novel about how we define consent and what we lose, gain and never get over as we navigate our way into adulthood.
About the Author
Susan Choi is the author of five novels: Trust Exercise, My Education, American Woman, A Person of Interest and The Foreign Student. She has been a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award and the 2004 Pulitzer Prize and is the winner of the Asian-American Literary Award for Fiction. Choi was named the inaugural recipient of the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award in 2010 and is a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She teaches at Yale and lives with her family in Brooklyn.
Industry Reviews
A Russian doll of a novel * Daily Telegraph *
Will leave you shaken to your very core * Cosmopolitan *
A devastatingly apt analysis of what men have gotten away with * The New York Times *
Remarkable ... a phosphorescent examination of sexual consent -- Top Books of 2019 * The New York Times *
Tense and lovely -- Best Books of 2019 * New Yorker *
Tricksy and beguiling -- Books of the Year * Economist *
Unputdownable -- Must-Read Books of 2019 * Time Magazine *
Spellbinding -- Best Books of 2019 * Elle Magazine *
Trust Exercise is Choi's fifth novel, and without a doubt her most ingenious yet. Sure, submitting to it is a "trust exercise" all of its own, but the razzmatazz that awaits is well worth it. -- Lucy Scholes * FT *
Powerful, addictive, smart * Elle Magazine *
Taut, distinctive and deeply unsettling * Daily Mail *
A masterly study of power and its abuses ... Choi shows how much we need our female novelists within the sea change of our current moment * Guardian *
A captivating, dark and unforgettable read * You *
