33 - A Book With an Unreliable Narrator

[L Y N N]

A Book With an Unreliable Narrator

The only negative thing about this prompt is that there are some books that if you KNOW going into them the narrator is unreliable, it can be a big "spoiler," IMO! But with that said, let's compile a listing! My most recent read that qualifies and I found to be very compelling was The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth! Definitely recommended!

There are definitely Goodreads listopias to help:
"Novels with an Unreliable Narrator"
"Books with Unreliable Narrators"
"Liar Liar: YA Books with Unreliable Narrators"

I can't imagine anything that would work in nonfiction, but perhaps there are some.

Listopia is HERE

[Dubhease]

I won't be reading the listopia. Who wants a prompt that's a spoiler?

[Anna]

It may be a spoiler sometimes but other times its obvious as soon as you start reading. Such as the character is drunk or lost their memory.

[Ron]

Thanks for the list, Lynn.

I saw that Jane Austen's Emma is on there so I'll go with that one since I want to read more JA books anyways.

[Elsa]

I liked Luckiest Girl Alive for this reason but PLEASE look up content warnings if you read it!

And then there's the classics We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Secret History.

[Megan]

Elsa wrote: "I liked Luckiest Girl Alive for this reason but PLEASE look up content warnings if you read it!

And then there's the classics We Have Always Lived in the Castle and [b..."

I for sure thought I knew what was going on but damn, the last few chapters threw me for a loop!

[Bea]

Ron wrote: "Thanks for the list, Lynn.

I saw that Jane Austen's Emma is on there so I'll go with that one since I want to read more JA books anyways."

Ron, I also thought that, if you wanted non-fiction, you could look for an author whose book has been discounted as not being fully true. The one that comes to mind is Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time, but I am sure there are others.

[Denise]

I love unreliable narrator books, but of course it's better if you don't know going in that it's one. I think I'll wait on this to see if any of the books that I'm reading in 2024 happen to fit the category.

[Ron]

Bea wrote: Ron, I also thought that, if you wanted non-fiction, you could look for an author whose book has been discounted as not being fully true. The one that comes to mind is Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time, but I am sure there are others

Oh that's excellent. Thanks, Bea.

When you mentioned that the first book that jumped out at me was The Day After Roswell . I read this book in college and I remember after a lot of research I came to find that Corso had been discredited in the UFO community so it's perfect.

I'm sure I can find others as well now that you helped me on what to look for.

[Diana]

I think in certain cases where even if you know going in, the book can still be highly enjoyable. These are some of the ones I think don't ruin the plot or surprises---Genuine Fraud, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, I Killed Zoe Spanos and The Final Girl Support Group

[S.A.]

would the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes work for this one?

[Jennifer W]

Maybe I'm just a cynic, but I kinda assume all the narrators are unreliable until I get to the end of the book and get proven otherwise!!

Some that I've liked:
(view spoiler)[
Life of Pi
Sister
Atonement
Last Night I Sang to the Monster
Shutter Island
The Thirteenth Tale
Challenger Deep
(hide spoiler)]

[Natalie]

Could Push by Ashley Audrain work for this?

[Sonia]

I have The Housemaid on my TBR shelf. Can anyone tell me if this would fit for this prompt?

[Louise]

To me (view spoiler)[ The Thief (hide spoiler)] will have always been the first genuine one I read as a teenager and remember. There are hints but the full nature of what actually occurred at the end will also remain with me.

[Laura Ruth]

I love unreliable-narrator stories. It feels like a compliment to the reader, that they can understand what's happening without having it spelled out. Some that spring to mind:

Lolita
Room
The Remains of the Day
When We Were Orphans
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

[Elizabeth]

Her Dark Lies by J. T. Ellison was done in more than one POV, and one of the narrators was unreliable.

[The Pampered Librarian]

I'll be reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Although, I am quite tempted to re-read The Girl on the Train again. I know a lot of readers didn't really care for it, but I LOVE it.

[Dubhease]

How unreliable do unreliable narrators need to be? I usually think of them as being crazy or removed from reality like in (view spoiler)[ We Were Liars (hide spoiler)] or (view spoiler)[ As I Lay Dying (hide spoiler)].

However, in mysteries/thrillers characters lie to you as the reader. You think they are innocent and they only tell you with 50 pages to go that they are the murderer or have at least killed someone. Is this really an unreliable narrator or just a less than truthful one?

[Joanna G]

Dubhease wrote: "How unreliable do unreliable narrators need to be? I usually think of them as being crazy or removed from reality like in [spoilers removed] or [spoilers removed].

However, in mysteries/thrillers ..."
I would absolutely count that - to me, the idea is that you can't count on your narrator to give you the complete picture of what's going on, whether that's deliberate or they're trying but there are factors that mean they can't, like addiction or mental health issues.

[Debbie]

Ron wrote: "Bea wrote: Ron, I also thought that, if you wanted non-fiction, you could look for an author whose book has been discounted as not being fully true. The one that comes to mind is Three Cups of Tea:..."

I was thinking about anything by Beatrice Sparks would work in this vein, then. Sparks purported to be someone who "found" all the diaries she published as cautionary tales to youth, but then it turns out that she actually wrote them herself. Books that are publicized as non-fiction but are totally mad eup sound unreliable to me...

A Million Little Pieces is another book that was marketed as a memoir, only to discover that many parts of the book are certainly fictional.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is supposedly a true memoir of Beah's life as a child soldier, but there were some news stories who correlated his writing with actual news stories and found some of it to be inaccurate. It makes sense - either some of it was wrong intentionally, or this man is trying to remember things as a child who was living a traumatic experience daily. Of course he's an unreliable narrator.

[Jessica]

I listened to Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane for this one. I found this book on several Popsugar lists for unreliable narrator. I just wished that I read the book BEFORE I had seen the movie (LOL!)

[Nadine in NY]

Debbie wrote: "I was thinking about anything by Beatrice Sparks would work in this vein, then. Sparks purported to be someone who "found" all the diaries she published as cautionary tales to youth, but then it turns out that she actually wrote them herself. ..."


That Beatrice Sparks thing is so funny to me. I grew up in the 70s. I was totally the target audience for Go Ask Alice, and I did in fact buy it from a Bookmobile and read it. But my mother was always such a cynic, she told me back then that it was fiction. So I didn't realize that some people truly believed it was an actual diary, and when the big kerfuffle arose about Sparks, I was so confused.

[Ashley]

I read The Woman in Cabin 10. This was good if you are looking for a mystery, psychological thriller with an unreliable narrator.

[Sim1]

Grotesque

[Lisa Marie]

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

[Lilith]

House of Leaves has an unreliable narrator. Maybe a few. Your job is to figure out which one (or more).

[Sherri]

I read The Gift of Rain. 5 stars. Tan Twan Eng is one of my favorite authors.

[Milena]

Sherri wrote: "I read The Gift of Rain. 5 stars. Tan Twan Eng is one of my favorite authors."

I've only read one of his books, and it was this one. I loved it also. Can't wait to read more.

[Kendra]

I think I'm going to read Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Impostor Syndrome for this.

[Nadine in NY]

Sherri wrote: "I read The Gift of Rain. 5 stars. Tan Twan Eng is one of my favorite authors."




Good to know!!! I read Evening Mists in 2022 and it was the best book I read that year - I have been meaning to read Rain but haven't gotten around to it. I didn't realize it would work for this category. SOLD!

[Britany]

Finished None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

My Review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Collin]

I literally cannot recommend The Thief enough.

It's subtler, but the shock of having a whole book recontextualized near the end of Charmed Life really sticks in my memory. Both Turner and Jones really know how to utilize first-/close third-person POV to manipulate the version of reality the narrator wants to portray, not the whole objective truth, without the manipulation being obvious on first blush.

[Dubhease]

I read The Wife Between Us

[Anna]

Kazuo Ishiguros The unconsoled is an interesting read, although maybe not everybody's cup of tea. The remains of the day are also very good.

[Laura Ruth]

Anna wrote: "Kazuo Ishiguros The unconsoled is an interesting read, although maybe not everybody's cup of tea. The remains of the day are also very good."

I really liked The Remains of the Day, and have heard good (if depressing) things about Never Let Me Go. On the other hand, When We Were Orphans didn't work for me at all. Definitely qualifies as unreliable narrator, but the line between reality and fantasy is so blurred that I wasn't even sure what the story WAS.

[Cathern]

I recently read The God of Endings, would this count as an unreliable narrator book?

[Katie]

Just finished The Fury by Alex Michaelides, and it fits the bill! Also his book Silent Patient, if you have not read it, would work too!

[Rose]

I decide I'm reading a book where I think the narrator turns out to be unreliable before I start reading the book, so I don't have to worry about spoilers.

[Diana]

The Bell Jar, Allegedly, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower would also work for this one.

[Aquaria]

Going totes old school for this one:

Shirley Jackson – We Have Always Lived in the Castle

[LeahS]

I read Old God's Time, in which an elderly retired policeman is faced with a case from his past. It's not first person narrative, but told wholly from his point of view.

We don't know until the end which of his memories or events in his life are true -perhaps not even then.

Told in a stream of consciousness style, which I found hard to get into at first, although the language and imagery are beautiful. Grim story though.

[Robin H-R]

I read:
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

Excellent novel from a Pulitzer winning author.

[Khalena Tate]

I read Notes on an Execution for this one. The main character is a murderer on death row and not entirely self-aware to put it lightly.

[Alyssa]

My Murder by Katie Williams

[Julia]

[Jai]

What is the exact criteria for an unreliable narrator? I feel like a few on the list are pretty bias like Monday's Not Coming and The Maid. One book feature's a Black child and another features a woman that is possibly on the spectrum.

[Jennifer W]

I think there's lots of ways/reasons a narrator could be unreliable. One could be that the narrator is deliberately lying to keep the reader/police/significant other etc in the dark. Another could be that the person can't know or tell the truth, such as a child who isn't old enough to understand everything, someone with a mental illness or an addiction, someone with amnesia, etc. Obviously, every book that features these characters may not be unreliable narrators. It's one of the tricky parts and complaints of this prompt. You may not know if it meets the criteria until you get to the end.

[Jai]

A few of those makes sense such as someone lying to the police or others but a child or someone that has a mental illness just doesn't feel right to me. I see why people complain about this prompt.


Jennifer W wrote: "I think there's lots of ways/reasons a narrator could be unreliable. One could be that the narrator is deliberately lying to keep the reader/police/significant other etc in the dark. Another could ..."

[Lilith]

Jennifer W wrote: "I think there's lots of ways/reasons a narrator could be unreliable. One could be that the narrator is deliberately lying to keep the reader/police/significant other etc in the dark. Another could ..."

I have always taken the "unreliable narrator" as you , the reader, cannot rely on the narrator. The characters are just who they are, with no judgment at all. But I do like the fact that you are thinking about characters, and why a narrator may not be "reliable". It's like an investment in the characters.

The best part is that you get to look for clues in the story that make you think, "Hmm, I do not think I am getting the whole story from this POV, or narrator..." I love that!