Trust exercise, Susan Choi
I received this book on January 11th from Early Reviewers on librarything.com, and I truly made a sincere effort to read it. Because of the language in the initial pages, I almost abandoned it, but I decided to give it a good faith effort. However, too many books include obscenity with no need, and although this book is about teenagers, I didn’t feel there was a need for some of the crude details and language. Eventually, I read almost half of the book carefully, and then I gave up and skimmed the rest. For me the book’s style was off-putting. I am task oriented and like to have chapters that provide a good place for a respite. This book has no discernible separations for more than 130 pages. It was at that point that the book steps into the future and takes a different shape, as well, at which point it did become more interesting.
The book is about teenagers in a special school for the arts. Two of them, David and Sarah fall in love but the relationship falters because of misunderstandings by both of them. Neither of them is able to explain or deal with the feelings they are experiencing. They neither have the experience to understand or the words to communicate their emotions and responses. Every act seems to be spontaneous as if the repercussions are immaterial. Their behavior pushes the envelope at every opportunity. They seem to want to be adults but do not have the required maturity.
The book, like the title, is about trust, trust in the many avenues of life, blind trust and superficial trust, trust in the world of dating, in the school environment, with friends and teachers, with relatives and parents. Lying was quite commonplace as was selfishness. Were these just the examples of how teens dealt with life and eventually grew up into responsible citizens, of how the hurts and successes shaped their lives? Will anything turn out as they planned? Will they all be disappointed, or will they redesign their dreams based on their ups and downs during these formative teen years?
The behavior of these young adults, during their teenage years, necessarily scars them and remains within their psyches as they grow up into adults and forge ahead. Some of the scars are worse than others, some are immaterial. Some experiences are positive. They are, however, easily abused and easily hurt. Often their hopes for success are smashed. Their directions are changed, and they have to deal with reality, something that they did not often deal with as teenagers.
The book was filled with surprises at the end. There were revelations about how the lives of the main characters turned out, and the vehicle which revealed more about them was a also a surprise. At the end, I thought that the book would be best suited for young adults, upper class high school students, perhaps, with teacher guidance to explain the nuances of the consequences. Although some of the characters’ lives were exposed with shocking unexpected details, their lives were knitted together neatly, in the end. I had a friend look at the book and she thought her teenage twin granddaughters would love it.