Trust Exercise (Winner of the National Book Award 2019)

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR

Both inventive and shocking, Trust Exercise became a sensation on publication in the USA for its timely insights into sex, power and the nature of abuse.

Sarah and David are in love - the obsessive, uncertain love of teenagers on the edge of adulthood. At their performing arts school, the rules are made by their magnetic drama instructor Mr Kingsley, who initiates them into a dangerous game. Two decades on we learn that the real story of these teenagers' lives is even larger and darker than we imagined, and the consequences have lasted a lifetime.

Trust Exercise is a brilliant, unforgettable novel about what we lose, gain and never get over as we're initiated into the mysteries of adulthood.


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)