A review by wendoxford
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
1.0
I absolutely hated this novel despite its endless accolades.
It captured a true essence of adolescence and was tricksy in its perspectives of narrative, but for me the layers of scrambled histories, dislikeable protagonists and unreliable narrators did not add up to #metoo under the spotlight. Dissonance did not convert to clarity.
The plot device is not new..Sarah Waters gets the reader to adjust their perceptions of "a truth" so convincingly in Fingersmith that this novel felt puerile in comparison. We then had the second part of the story wrapped up in a semi-guise of omniscient narrator who addresses us as "reader". Charlotte Bronte can do this because she glides with the device, Susan Choi just keeps thumping it home and instead of feeling insight, I felt mounting irritation.
It captured a true essence of adolescence and was tricksy in its perspectives of narrative, but for me the layers of scrambled histories, dislikeable protagonists and unreliable narrators did not add up to #metoo under the spotlight. Dissonance did not convert to clarity.
The plot device is not new..Sarah Waters gets the reader to adjust their perceptions of "a truth" so convincingly in Fingersmith that this novel felt puerile in comparison. We then had the second part of the story wrapped up in a semi-guise of omniscient narrator who addresses us as "reader". Charlotte Bronte can do this because she glides with the device, Susan Choi just keeps thumping it home and instead of feeling insight, I felt mounting irritation.