On Hernan Diaz's "Trust"

"Trust" is an excellent book to assign high schoolers or even college freshmen. By laying the dueling narratives back to back, Diaz allows for easy and accessible comparative analysis. It's like this entire novel was purpose-built for training readers how to analyze text.

It also helps that the book is thoroughly enjoyable and brisk and its characters are lovingly stuffed with detail. The structure has a toylike wonder to it, like being pulled out of a set of tiny, detailed dioramas.

Diaz does not stick the landing, unfortunately, leaning on the boring and predictable trope of "Eyyy dis one dame was da mastermind tha whole time" yeah no shit. There's also a clumsy attempt at writing about music composition that is so overwrought I became flushed in embarrassment.