WINNER OF THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD'Will leave you shaken to your very core' CosmopolitanNAMED A BOOK OF THE YEAR by The New York Times, Economist, BBC Radio 4's Open Book, Time Magazine, Elle Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Marie Claire, Kirkus Reviews, Washington Post , Chicago Tribune, Book Riot, Chicago Tribune, NPR, Slate and New Yorker.Sarah 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 drama instructor Mr Kingsley, who initiates them into a dangerous game. Two decades on we learn that the real story of these teenagers' lives is even larger and darker than we imagined, and the consequences have lasted a lifetime. Trust Exercise is a brilliant, unforgettable novel about what we lose, gain and never get over as we're initiated into adulthood's mysterious structures of sex and power.