Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

Trust Exercise: A Novel

By Susan Choi

Trust Exercise is the electrifying National Book Award–winning novel that redefines the boundaries of storytelling. Set in a competitive performing arts high school in the 1980s, Susan Choi’s brilliantly structured narrative explores power dynamics, manipulation, adolescence, and memory. What begins as a story of two teenagers falling in love quickly evolves into a meta-fictional spiral, forcing readers to question what is real and who gets to tell the truth.

With intricate prose and a daring structure, Choi unpacks how art imitates life and vice versa, shining a light on the ways our experiences—and our traumas—are remembered, revised, or erased. Trust Exercise is as emotionally resonant as it is intellectually provocative, a rare literary achievement that pushes the novel form into bold new territory.

Awards & Praise:
National Book Award Winner • “Delicious and unsettling.” — The New York Times • “Masterly and ingenious.” — The Guardian • A New York Times Bestseller

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