When the narrator is unreliable and can’t be trusted, we, the reader have to think for ourselves to figure out the story. We’ll evaluate the situations and characters critically in the book to figure out what’s going on. And you don’t even know what this is. The unreliable narrator is one of the trickiest literary tropes to get right. BOOKS 02/21/2013 08:26 am ET. 373 books — 413 voters The Girl on the Train Read A Likes. At some times this can become quite puzzling. After Sharp Objects, I began to seek out books with unreliable narrators. These four books each have a narrator that is unreliable in a different, bold way. Unreliable narration strategies are not only a good opportunity for authors or directors to break with conventional plot patterns, they also encourage the recipient to rethink certain aspects of a book or a film. Books with unreliable narrators keep you on your toes. That is for the readers to find and that is exactly why I started looking out for such characters. It makes sense then why so many people love an unreliable narrator — and so many people hate them. But when an author gets it … 442 books — 428 voters Unique Narrators. From Nick and Amy Dunne in Gone Girl to Briony Tallis in Atonement, revisit some of your favorite unreliable narrators. The unreliable narrator can be a very effective device when used properly in storytelling. Will you ever know? When an author introduces an unreliable narrator, you and the characters may be in this together, but you’re not working together. They may not always tell the truth, but they make some of the most gripping storytellers. The Most Compelling Unreliable Narrators in Literature. 170 books — 240 voters Smug Bastards! Well, they can be doing that out of naivete or guilt. (Ed note: A Google Image Search Is what’s happening real? That’s where first-person, unreliable narrators come in. Listopia > Unreliable Narrator Book Lists. Books with Unreliable Narrators. That’s more disorienting than a rolling blackout. To celebrate this, I’ve compiled a list of 12 books with unreliable narrators. My Top 5 Books With Unreliable Narrators The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend. If you have other examples of great stories with unreliable narrators, let us know in the comments below! Sometimes you find the answers you’re looking for, sometimes you don’t—but there’s something undeniably intriguing about books with narrators you can’t quite trust, even when you’re not exactly sure why you can’t trust them. We love us a narrator who's insane in the membrane. An unreliable narrator shatters the reader’s trust by contradicting themselves or misrepresenting the facts or even outright lying. Is it imagined? In any case, books with unreliable narrators are usually quite memorable and I really enjoy reading them. If you haven’t heard of one of these books, feel free to pick up a copy at our website. Books with unreliable narrator are the most intriguing stories to be read. So, without further ado, let’s move on to my top picks! Aware or unaware of their manipulations and omissions, cool and calculating, or slowly descending into the dark abyss of the untethered mind, here are (spoiler alert) eight of fiction's craziest unreliable narrators. Sometimes they don’t even understand what they’re experiencing until the end of the book. They lie, they obfuscate, they show you only what they can, or want you to see. Get it wrong, and the story is simply too frustrating and falls apart.