Tournament of Books discussion

Trust Exercise

July 24: Trust Exercise, first half
July 31: Trust Exercise, second half

Any strong advocates for this book? It's super far from my wheel house and I have the book from the library but can't seem to muster up the energy.

All I can say is I started reading it a few weeks ago, but couldn't get into it. But when it was chosen, I read reviews that said it gets much better, twisty, especially in the second half. (shrug) I'm going to try again, just because it seems like it'll make for interesting discussion.

IMO, it does have some interesting twists, but I'm not sure if they will be "book-redeeming" for a reader who is already not connecting with the novel. I was a theater major in college so I related to a lot of their drama-kid angst.

This book didn't work for me. Yes, there are some twists and some interesting things the author does. I just left a job at a school much like the one depicted in this book. Reading about a bunch of high schooler angst is not particularly interesting to me no matter what interesting narrative tricks the author pulls off.

I liked the changes in voice and perspective as the POV changed, and found the book a lot more fun and provocative after the first section. I gave it five stars. ❤️

I loved the first POV shift (and it explains some of the weird writing in the first section) but the second one left me a little flummoxed. I'm not exactly sure why it was included. I think the book would have been strong enough without it...unless I am missing something.

I listened to it on audio and loved it! I'm a little unsure about what actually happened though. I have a physical copy too, and I may have to reread part of it to see if I can decide.

I absolutely loved it, but I can see why it's not for everyone. Setting it during the time when I went to high school as well as in my city drew me in, but honestly, it's the twists and turns that completely blew me away. I can't wait to discuss it.

I really want to discuss this novel! After it was done, I went to the second part again. There is so much I missed when I read it through the first time. I can see why it would not sit well with people, especially the first part. The second part is money. The third part made me say wait a second here. I am really curious how the judges/ commentators are going to react to this book.

Kristina wrote: "I really want to discuss this novel! After it was done, I went to the second part again. There is so much I missed when I read it through the first time. I can see why it would not sit well with pe..."

I would love to hear you talk about some of the things you thought you missed! There were things that were revealed (the shirt scene being made up, the drama teacher), but I didn't think of it as missing them but rather that they were deliberately left out?

M wrote: "Kristina wrote: "I really want to discuss this novel! After it was done, I went to the second part again. There is so much I missed when I read it through the first time. I can see why it would not..."

So as a reader, are we inclined to believe Karen's version of events? I was, BUT I think maybe one shouldn't be so quick. How much of it is just her revenge fantasy?

My biggest question is about the 3rd section which is the one I "trust" the most. How does it negate or confirm the first two sections?

I had to rush through this novel due to a library deadline, but I really want to reread it. (The hold list is endless.)

Contains slight spoilers

I think that Karen made you think she was telling the truth, but I feel somethings we were supposed to interpret on our own. For example the only kid that left school was Karen, however in Sarah story it’s Manuel who left. Now, the last section we find out Mr Lorde who I interpreted as Mr. Kingsley is not gay and is a bad seed or is that Martin who just happened to stay in the states d/t his witch hunt??? See I don’t know, but we find out that Karen was actually a really good singer. It’s so interesting, they are unreliable characters, but how much are they keeping to themselves and hinting at?

That’s what I wanted to talk about!!! If you look at some of the stories from both Sarah and Karen, there are similarities, but the side characters they use could be what they actually did or wanted to say. Am I just reading into it too much? That is possible.

I believed more of Karen's narrative than I did Sarah's....I was skeptical of Sarah's from the beginning because she was writing her peers into a novel so I expected her to take some creative license. I found it fascinating that Sarah's Joelle was not a real person but a facet of Karen's personality.

Janet wrote: "I believed more of Karen's narrative than I did Sarah's....I was skeptical of Sarah's from the beginning because she was writing her peers into a novel so I expected her to take some creative licen..."
That was a confusing part to me. There’s also this scene that’s verbatim in both sections about returning to school and parking in the front?

I don’t know if the mistake was intentional or not in Karen’s narrative, but there is no café (no businesses at all in fact, just a wall) across the street from Skylight Books in Los Angeles. It’s a small detail if it was just missed (I remember from a few years back one of the commenters on Disqus who was enraged that Donna Tart misplaced a Burger King in Grand Junction, CO in The Goldfinch.) but on the other hand, what if this is supposed to be a clue to Karen’s own unreliability?

I finished last night, thinking I might want to talk about the book on my podcast, but decided against it. And now everything will be a spoiler so I'll mask it.

(view spoiler)[I think the author had good instincts - I'm a fan of the idea that everyone tells a different version of a story, and everyone has their reasons. But the last two "sections" are hardly that, especially the last one. I would have liked a much more fleshed out final part to understand what she was trying to do there. More than anything, the way people's names change based on who is telling the story kind of masked the story for me in a bad way.

And some of the points of contention, for instance the rather clever "Joelle was part of Karen's personality" are.. well, clever, but are they necessary? I think they muddy the waters. But possibly intentionally so we don't expect what's coming.

Unfortunately I know chekhov's gun so I always knew someone was getting shot. Too obvious. Beginner's error.

So I feel I would have given the book a solid 4 stars for its capture of teenage artsy fartsy theater culture (similar to how I gave The Animators 5 stars for a similar capture, but slightly better) and could have upped that if I felt Choi had done what she wanted to do more effectively, but instead feel these extra parts just muddy everything up. I agree with whatever person it was in the novel who "stuck the bookmark in at page 131 because to them that was where the novel ended," or whatever that very obvious reference was. (hide spoiler)]

I thoroughly enjoyed this. I loved the way the second half threw then entire first half into being something else.

This reminded me a lot of Eleanor Catton's The Rehearsal.

I wasn't such a fan of this novel as I thought the second half/narrator switch was more gimmicky than fleshed out. I appreciate reading these thoughtful reviews and very different perspective on the novel. I might not hate it now!

I've been avoiding all the commentary because I'm Officially Discussing the first half with Andrew in Camp ToB. Now that I'm finished, I really, REALLY wish I'd had the second half rather than the first half to talk about. So much more there there, if you know what I mean. I feel this is a book I'll think about for a loooonnng time. And it certainly did shift completely after p. 131. I really liked the meta aspects. I liked Karen starting her story over several times, and it was Karen's description of going back to school and running into Sarah that was repeated -- but repeated after we knew what had happened to Karen. I think this was incredibly effective. I think the Claire section was incredibly effective, even if I'm not 100% sure what happened. Hoo-eee. Yeah, this book's going to stick with me. I think there will be a lot to discuss in its second week. It certainly wins for me over Lost Children Archive, even though I'm pretty sure I'll be alone in that, after reading the reaction this week.

I can’t muster any enthusiasm for this novel.

I too found Trust Exercise the more interesting book so you are not alone Ellen.

I like Susan Choi in general and tried twice to get through Trust Exercise. This time I made it further but gave up around a quarter of the way through. It just felt meandering and overwrought, and it wasn't holding my interest. I read the gist of the second-half twist, which is probably interesting while reading, but from a distance it seems a little gimmicky (and I usually like experimental fiction.) Regardless, I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts, Ellen.

This match is killing me, and I wish I could have used my vote last month for one of these books.

I so appreciate the comments on this board. I was ready to give up about 20 pages or so before the first half ended. Put it down when I got to the first half, took a peek at the comments, then took a break and read something "easier" before I dove into the 2nd half. Really got into Karen's story, but sort of wished she had stuck with that one and ended it as opposed to starting a new one with Claire. Look forward to the discussions.

Is it just me being impatient, or is today's match up later than the others had been?

It seems late to me too, but I’m on vacation this week, so I have more free time to check every few minutes. Can’t wait!

posted! https://themorningnews.org/article/ca...

Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I finished last night, thinking I might want to talk about the book on my podcast, but decided against it. And now everything will be a spoiler so I'll mask it.

I think the author had good instinc..."

I also thought the names changes made things "muddy" where the reader had to keep thinking through who-was-who again to keep it all straight. I could have done without that part...

Just finished it, and although I can't say I'm glad I read it - wouldn't have kept going if it wasn't a TOB book, since I'm just not into teenage angst at this stage of my life, and I really could have skipped those sex scenes.

But I seem to have a different take than others: (view spoiler)[ I believe both Sarah and Karen's sections were fiction/unreliable. The name changes being the biggest clue. Sarah's story was the set up but "left the most important thing out". Karen's was a revenge fantasy. It was obvious she would shoot someone as soon as the gun was introduced, combined with the amount of attention paid to the loading and unloading of the gun (as an aside, I don't think she actually shot "Martin" with a bullet - I just think she got close enough to his testicles with the blank to cause real pain/damage). But I think the main clues are in Claire's section, in which everyone is themselves.

There is no Martin. The teacher (Lord) is the molester, and the father of "Karen"s daughter. He's the one under a cloud of suspicion with multiple accusers, he's not gay, he wasn't inappropriate with "Manuel". "Manuel" didn't leave the school, "Karen" did, perhaps after being outed by Sarah who, as her best friend, knew what was going on (and was maybe jealous of the attention "Karen" was getting, especially after in "Sarah"s story it was implied that she had received special attention from the teacher early on). Final evidence, Lord assaulted Claire (his own daughter, ew.) (hide spoiler)] That's my theory.

I just finished and don't know what to think about this novel! Like a lot of others, I was ready to put the book down during the first half. Fortunately I don't like to give up on books and the second half really worked for me. But like others, I'm confused with the different names. Robert Lord was Mr Kingsley? Trish, your take is interesting! Has me rethinking the whole book!

What a perfect book to discuss in two parts!

Trish wrote: "Just finished it, and although I can't say I'm glad I read it - wouldn't have kept going if it wasn't a TOB book, since I'm just not into teenage angst at this stage of my life, and I really could ..."

Interesting theories! I think they all make sense... You should definitely add them to the commentary on The Morning News on Wednesday. :)

Trish wrote: "Just finished it, and although I can't say I'm glad I read it - wouldn't have kept going if it wasn't a TOB book, since I'm just not into teenage angst at this stage of my life, and I really could ..."

Agree with your interpretation Trish. Both Karen and Sarah's versions are hiding things.

Sticking a spoiler tag, just in case: (view spoiler)[Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "And some of the points of contention, for instance the rather clever "Joelle was part of Karen's personality" are.. well, clever, but are they necessary? I think they muddy the waters. But possibly intentionally so we don't expect what's coming.."
I've still been thinking about the book (finished yesterday), and I think the above is a clue that the teacher (Lord) has also been split into separate characters: Martin and Mr. Kingsley. (hide spoiler)]

This book just didn't do it for me. The writing was nice and it was a quick read and I wasn't as turned off by the bad sex scenes as some others, it seemed an accurate description of teenage life. I enjoyed some of the surprises in the second half, but I thought it was too much done for the gimmick or the surprise effect and not worked out enough. Overall I wasn't impressed by the book, I didn't hate it but imho it doesn't come close to Lost Children Archive.

Finished yesterday and am feeling pretty ambivalent. These feel like three viewpoints of a story told through lies of omission and transference that cannot hope to tell us the truth. I’m onboard with that idea in theory but then the viewpoints need to be at least orbiting the same planet and Sarah’s story of the first half tells us almost nothing about Karen/Joelle/Pammi/4th person whose name escapes me cause she wasn’t featured enough in Sarah’s tale. Unless the whole point is to stress that everyone is the center of their own universe and can’t see what’s going on with anyone else (again, like that idea but didn’t see it succeed if that was the point). Perhaps if Karen/Joelle had been one whole person (instead of 4) in Sarah’s story and so we realize in Karen’s section that Sarah was orbiting her too and they inflicted gravity upon each other as much as the Sarah-David pair.

Here is part two

https://themorningnews.org/article/ca...

I read the book a couple of months ago, so my memory may be foggy, but my theory was: ***spoilers****


Mr. Kingsley and Martin were separate characters, and Mr. Kingsley abused Sarah. In Karen's part, she mentions how she was trying to figure out how Manuel "was", and how Sarah was really close to Mr. Kingsley. I thought Sarah making Kingsley gay was a way to obfuscate what really happened, as well as the over-the-top sex scenes. Especially since the big reveal of Claire's section is that Mr. Kingsley is straight, and a predator.

I also voted for this one over Lost Children Archive. It was an interesting read; I'm normally all in for any meta and unusual takes on the novel structure, but I did find Choi's choices a bit gimmicky, as Kristina said. I gave it five stars , but in my review at the time qualified it as almost being four. I'll have a reread and see if I change my mind.

Kathryn wrote: "I read the book a couple of months ago, so my memory may be foggy, but my theory was: ***spoilers****


Mr. Kingsley and Martin were separate characters, and Mr. Kingsley abused Sarah. In Karen's p..."

I also thought Karen implied that Mr. Kingsley had abused Sarah. That was the root of her anger about the book, that her abuse was included but Sarah left her own abuse out.