Trust Exercise

Review: 4.5 stars

This one was recommended by my sister, who I trust with book recommendations wholeheartedly.

Trust Exercise follows Sarah and David, two impressionable drama students at an elite performing arts high school. They are pushed to their full potential by Mr. Kingsley, a teacher who humiliates his students in order to hone their acting into a sharp weapon. The first part of the book is extremely readable - the romantic tension between Sarah and David, the mystique of Kingsley and his inappropriate closeness to his students. It's a magnetic story.

But what makes this book truly amazing is the reframe in the second part, when you find out that Sarah has written a novel about her own past life, and in doing so has leveraged Karen's lived experience, rounding off its edges, and turning it into a bestselling novel. Karen's real life tragedy is expunged from Sarah's narrative, and she is relegated to a supporting character in Sarah's novel, but the source material is Karen's onw life. Suddenly the book isn't about what you thought it was about at all.

What's fascinating is how many angles of trust Choi explores. Most literally through the trust exercises themselves, which wring such extreme truths out of these kids that embarrassment becomes a bonding agent, tying the students to Kingsley with something close to hostage-level loyalty. Then the deeper, thornier question: who can be trusted with your story? What happens to the truth of what you lived when someone else remembers it differently, or appropriates it outright and reshapes it?

And then the third part arrives, with its unknown woman, and casts the first two parts into chaotic relief. Choi leaves it unresolved, and you begin to question everything. Who really owns this story? Are Sarah and Karen actually two sides of the same person? Can you even trust your own memory, or do traumatic experiences force you to compartmentalize, splitting your lived experience as a coping mechanism, a way to rebuild trust in yourself?

At face value this is an easy, propulsive, compelling novel. But if you choose to follow the rabbit hole, it becomes extremely cerebral. That duality is what makes it brilliant: it forces you to question every facet of trust, starting with the trust you placed in the narrator on page one.

Normal People

Review: 4 stars

It’s certainly been a while since I last had a chance to post! Life with two kids and return to work (albeit remote), has been more than a handful. But I feel lucky that we have so far emerged unscathed from the pandemic - that in itself is a blessing!

I was looking for a new show to watch on weekends to unwind a bit, and came across ‘Normal People’ - the BBC and Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney’s sophomore novel. It inspired me to share my reflections on the source material, which I had read earlier in 2020.

Many find the book “compulsive” and “difficult to put down” - certainly, I echo these sentiments, particularly when Marianne and Connell, our star-crossed protagonists, are in the thralls of their adolescent, tormented romance. What I found most striking though, was the brutally honest, yet somehow misunderstood dialogue between the two of them, and more importantly, the dialogue each had internally with their own self. Connell’s hidden anxieties and fear of conspicuousness drive him to create a divided universe. One of his high school hallways, where he passively watches as Marianne is harshly bullied, and another of his bedroom, where he is mentally and physically entranced by Marianne. He deludes himself in his level of self-importance, believing he has the power to upend the social hierarchy of high school if he admits to his secret affair with Marianne. Connell’s need for self-preservation leads to a painful betrayal, and the first of many scars inflicted upon the fragile, rare bond he shares with Marianne.

I followed the unfolding saga avidly - cursing their ability to completely speak past one another, and amazed by their ability to share absolute truths in an entirely disarming way. They become two magnets that are inexorably drawn together, but monetary woes, controlling boyfriends and their own self-doubt continue to cast polarizing forcefields around them, drawing them apart time and again. Rooney is so skillful in her ability to reflect real relationships - the wounds pile up, are momentarily salved, but the scars and memory of the pain layer upon one another. I found myself yearning for a return to wholeness, perfection and innocence - they way they once were. This does not transpire - Rooney takes each character further into flawed darkness - Connell with depression, Marianne with abusive relationships. The two people who return to one another by the end of the novel are like well-worn puzzle pieces - frayed and bent at the edges, but with an interlocking centre that enables a perfect fit.

The restorative power of relationships - especially the ones that transform and heal your core - is another beautiful theme that Rooney explores. Connell’s steadfast love for Marianne, from affirmation of her beauty to his refusal to hurt her during their most intimate moments, is the kernel of confidence that Marianne uses to grow her self-worth. By the end, his love for her is fact, not to be debated - something that simply will always be true. His love redeems her from the precipice of being unloveable.

I loved the tone of the novel - sensitive, aloof, free of artifice. It is full of joy and heartbreak, and is a fascinating examination into the lives of two complex, intelligent characters. I hope you have the chance to try this as a more cerebral summer romance read!