Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

4 reviews

agavemonster's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

4.5

Gaps, twists, elisions, and warped reflections make up the meat of this nostalgic, lonely, alone-feeling book. You might be fooled by the plain and only occasionally lovely writing, but a strong authorial hand is controlling the text. This book is like a single piece of paper you flip over again and again, but keep seeing new information on, as if there are two dozen pages folded accordion-like inside this one sheet. Great sex writing also, from the rapturous to the nauseating.
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summerrains's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

tamu engl 303: the school novel 

um this book is a very interesting approach to addressing how stories are told from different people’s perspective. the author and this book are a perfect example of Nealon and Giroux’s idea of audiences being able to interpret works in their own way. if you’re looking for high school drama with a weird twist half way through then i‘d suggest this book. but a bit of a warning for you, even though the drama may seem petty, the problems that these characters deal with are very deep and very real. 
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mia_merrill's review

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emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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deusbexmachina's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Wow wow wow wow. I devoured this book and can't stop thinking about it. I won't spoil it (especially because doing so would require so much explanation and summary). But I do think the book is brilliantly constructed. The core themes are trust, believability, and accountability, particularly in regards to sexual assault. As a reader, you know that horrific things have happened to the main characters; they have been mistreated and taken advantage of. But the exact nature of what happened to them is up for debate, called into question again and again throughout the book, so you're forced to interrogate the survivors' accounts, rather than their abusers. It feels ugly, and I think that's Susan Choi's point. Okay, one spoiler:
I would say that Martin most definitely does not get off the hook for his actions, even though retribution comes late. But Mr. Kingsley/Mr. Lord? He dies without repercussion. However, their actions deeply impact Karen (who carries so much anger), Claire (who will never know her parents), and Sarah (who needs to distance herself through fiction), and their suffering is largely invisible.
I know why this book is polarizing, but I can't wait to talk about it with everyone.
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