Beyond Reality discussion

Tell us about your favorite books with unreliable narrators!

Two come to mind for me - Planetfall by Emma Newman, which the group read some time back, and The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp, which several of you talked about so much that it inspired me to read it and I loved it :)

Not sure I appreciate the concept, but I see that The Maid and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time both made several Listopias. I enjoyed both of them.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a five star book and made one of the Listopias. I'm not sure if you think it qualifies.

I would have been one of the people who mentioned The Last Days of Jack Sparks. It was a good book. Glad others are enjoying it. :)

There is also We Have Always Lived in the Castle

and a short story Walking to Aldebaran
You really need to read twice for everything to start making sense.

Maybe The Long Game

At the End of Every Day

I keep feeling like there are others but I just cannot bring them to mind.

Cheryl wrote: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a five star book and made one of the Listopias. I'm not sure if you think it qualifies."

There can be a few types of unreliable narrator, though its been so long since I read Huck Finn that I can't remember enough details. It was a school assignment so it was read and promptly forgotten as soon as I passed the test. :)

Using some of the examples above
(Going to put book names in spoilers cause some might not want to know exact details of a particular book.)

1) The narrator is purposefully providing faulty information.
(view spoiler)[The Last Days of Jack Sparks and We Have Always Lived in the Castle fall under this category. (hide spoiler)]

2) The narrator is not understanding what is going on and so cannot accurately report what is happening.
(view spoiler)[The Long Game is an example of this. (hide spoiler)]

3) The narrator has a warped sense of reality. This might be due to drug use, mental health issues, or similar type issues and cannot accurately report what is happening.
(view spoiler)[At the End of Every Day falls under this category (hide spoiler)]

I believe (view spoiler)[Walking to Walking to Aldebaran (hide spoiler)] might be a mix of 2 and 3.

I hope more people chime in as I do really enjoy a good unreliable narrator and they seem scarce in the SF/F genres. I think the best ones are the ones we discover as the story unfolds and not one that is presented as unreliable to us early on.