Unreliable Narrator Starter Pack
Curated by BookMatcher Editorial · The narrator is lying. Maybe to you, maybe to themselves.
Eight books where the person telling you the story cannot be trusted. From the trope's modern household-name (Flynn) to the propulsive thrillers (Michaelides, Hawkins, Hoover) to the literary heavyweight (Diaz, Pulitzer). The trope is the rug-pull — and these are the books that earn theirs.
“The book that made 'unreliable narrator' a household phrase. Read it now if you somehow haven't — read it again if you have. The mid-book pivot is still doing damage a decade later.”
“A woman shoots her husband five times and stops speaking. A psychotherapist becomes obsessed with making her talk. The final-chapter rug-pull that owned 2019 and still owns this trope's TikTok corner.”
“A ghostwriter finishes a bestselling author's series and finds the dead wife's manuscript in a drawer. Two unreliable narrators in one — the manuscript-within-the-book is its own thriller.”
“Amber's in a coma. She can hear everything. Her husband is lying to her. So is she. Feeney's debut is the propulsive engine of this whole subgenre, and the rug never stops moving.”
“Cadence summers on a private island with her wealthy family and the cousins she calls the Liars, and something happened the year she was fifteen. Lockhart's YA twist novel is the gateway drug for an entire generation of unreliable-narrator readers.”
“Three points of view in a boarded-up house: a man, his daughter, and a cat that quotes the Bible. The Bram-Stoker-shortlisted unreliable-narrator novel for thriller readers ready to step into literary horror.”