by Susan Choi
First published 2020
Sarah and David seem like the perfect couple at their performing arts high school in a major Southern city. Their teacher Mr. Kingsley watches them closely, pushing his students through intense trust exercises that force them to reveal intimate details about their relationships and friendships. These sessions push the teenagers to their emotional breaking points. The story follows Sarah and David across multiple years through a complex narrative structure, showing how those brutal high school moments that feel endless leave lasting damage in adulthood. Choi captures the particular agony of adolescent nights that seem to stretch forever, and the misplaced trust young people put in adults who abuse their authority. The novel explores how power imbalances corrupt relationships between students and teachers, revealing the murky territory between influence and manipulation that can define formative years.
Genres: fiction, drama, abuse, contemporary, adolescence, academia
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: abuse-of-power, coming-of-age, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Southern City
Period: Adolescence
312 pages · Paperback · Alba Editorial
Content warnings: abuse, emotional-abuse