By Sammi Rozanski

I’ll be honest: I’ve been in a reading slump. For non book nerds, that basically means that I haven’t been able to finish a full novel in a while. Well, that was the case, until I started reading Trust by Hernan Diaz.

Both a Pulitzer prize winner and declared one of the top 100 novels of the 21st century by the New York Times, Trust is a weirdly formatted and extraordinarily creative work. The novel is basically made up of 4 mini-books, including one mini-novel, two memoirs, and one diary. The different perspectives really make the story come to life, and while the formatting may sound confusing, the novel is generally straightforward to read and isn’t too difficult to get through. 

The first mini-book of this story is Bonds by Harold Vanner. A fictional story set in the 1920’s that describes the life of Wall Street legend Ezra Rask, who has mysteriously accumulated a seemingly infinite fortune, Rask came from a line of family wealth, yet he found his own niche in the stock market. He is somehow always one step ahead of everyone else on Wall Street, predicting every up and down of Wall Street. The “fictional” story of Bonds is further dissected and complicated by the following mini-books in the novel, which include memoirs and diaries from the real people behind the fictional tale. 

Overall, the book is a satisfying read, and is perfect for getting out of a reading slump. It’s engaging and always keeps the reader on their toes, and while the story starts a little slowly, it soon becomes a fascinating page-turner that stays interesting for the rest of the stories. It would easily appeal to anyone who loves a good story, or wants a break from the traditional narrative structures of other novels. This book is extraordinarily creative and intensely entertaining, and is promising as a future classic in American literature.