SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 'This witty, sharp, unsettling novel grabs you and won't let you go.' Dana SpiottaNAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2019 by Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, Electric Literature, The Millions, PopSugar, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Publisher's Weekly, Lit Hub, Bustle, and The Huffington PostSarah and David are in love - the obsessive, uncertain love of teenagers on the edge of adulthood. They have just started their first term at a performing arts school, where the rules are made by their magnetic and manipulative drama instructor Mr Kingsley. Enclosing his students in a rarefied bubble where performance is everything, Mr Kingsley initiates them into a dangerous game that blurs the boundary between teacher and students. The outside world can't affect them - until the bubble bursts, and the students are left to deal with the fallout.Two decades on we learn that what we were told about these teenagers' lives is not completely true, but not completely false either. The real story surrounding Sarah, David and their fellow students is larger and darker than we imagined, and the consequences have lasted a lifetime.Trust Exercise is an enthralling, captivating novel about the treacherous terrain of adolescence, how we define consent, and what we lose, gain and never get over as we navigate our way into adulthood's mysterious structures of sex and power.