Reviews tagging 'Abortion'

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

2 reviews

laurensilva's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Trust Exercise is an interesting exploration into how there are always several sides to a story. We begin fully believing Sarah's narration, even though she is a teenager when everything seems outsized, only
to be told about halfway through the book that this has all been "fiction," or more accurately, "auto-fiction." We enter a new POV, "Karen's," which tells us that the Sarah we know is fake, a self-absorbed lie. It turns our preconceived notions around. But because of this switch, Choi also gets us questioning Karen's POV. Just like Karen says Sarah cannot speak to Karen's relationship with "Elli," neither can Karen truly know Sarah's relationship with her own mother; but still, Karen speaks with full authority on that topic. Karen is written from the self-righteous POV that she alone is right, she alone knows the truth and is a victim of Sarah's re-telling.

I do love how Choi switches between first and third person narration, especially with Karen, underscoring the difference between what a person remembers and what "actually" happened. For example, Karen's initial first-person telling of what happened between her and Sarah is that Karen went away to "Bible school" for the "fall and winter of [her] junior year" and Sarah struck out alone to London. Then about 70 pages later, we get a third-person telling of "the truth."

I do think we could have done without the final section with Claire. I feel like that story line cheapens the rest of the book, turning it more into a soap opera drama.












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lenin_lover_69's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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