Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Published 2019 · 272 pages · 76,805 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is Trust Exercise to read?
Trust Exercise scores 63 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 55 out of 100
- Choi writes in precise, unsettling prose that captures both 1980s drama school intensity and contemporary reevaluation. The vocabulary shifts between sections, each with its own register and certainties.
- Sentence structure: 58 out of 100
- Sentences are often controlled and observational, building through accumulation of detail that seems straightforward until it isn't. Choi's prose has the rhythm of testimony that keeps revising itself.
- Abstraction: 65 out of 100
- The novel explores memory, power, and who owns the story through drama students whose relationships with their teacher and each other look different when revisited years later. The structure itself enacts how memory betrays us.
- Information density: 55 out of 100
- 1980s performing arts high school, the textures of adolescent intensity, and the mechanisms of charismatic manipulation layer through the narrative. Choi builds her portrait through accumulated attention to exercises, relationships, and what adults permit.
- Narrative indirection: 70 out of 100
- The novel's sections contradict each other about basic facts. The reader must track what each narrator claims while understanding how the structure itself questions what stories can be trusted.
- Symbolic density: 60 out of 100
- The trust exercises become symbolic of vulnerability demanded and exploited. The theater becomes symbolic of performance that shapes reality. The memoir form becomes symbolic of how we use others for our stories.
- Ironic distance: 62 out of 100
- Choi maintains complex ironic distance through the structure, letting each section expose the others' investments. The novel is skeptical about all versions while serious about the damage done.
- Resolution withholding: 68 out of 100
- The novel ends with questions rather than answers about what happened. Choi offers the contradictions without resolving them, letting the uncertainty stand.
- Structural complexity: 68 out of 100
- The tripartite structure that contradicts itself creates extreme interpretive demands. The form requires readers to revise their understanding repeatedly, never settling on stable truth.
How Trust Exercise is regarded
Trust Exercise holds a literary regard score of 78 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.