6 Books With Shockingly Unreliable Narrators

When readers pick up a new book, they usually go in assuming the narrator is a trusted source. So it can really catch readers off balance when not everything presented as fact actually corresponds to reality.

An unreliable narrator can hide a twist that lurks throughout the story, only to be revealed at the end. They can also act as a barrier between the narrator and the reader, making the reader question everything and forcing them to piece together what really happened. A protagonist’s unreliability can also be deliberate or unintentional, performed without the understanding that their version of events is different from the truth.

Here are a few options to pick up if you want to try a read that throws you off balance, hides a crazy twist, or makes you question everything.

1. Life of Pi by Yann Martel 
2. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
3. Atonement by Ian McEwan
4. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
5. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
6. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Life of Pi by Yann Martel 

A shipwreck during a storm forces Pi Patel to jump into a lifeboat with a menagerie of zoo animals, including a tiger named Richard Parker. As the other animals meet their fates, Pi and the tiger are left alone on the boat for more than 200 days before washing up on shore, where the tiger runs off into the jungle, never to be seen again. 

But as the rest of the novel unfolds, readers are left to question just what exactly happened on the lifeboat and if Pi's recollection of events hides a darker truth. And while the book ends with a different story about that time on the boat, and a likely more truthful explanation, readers are still left with questions about exactly what happened to Pi when he was lost at sea.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is a master of the murder mystery, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a quintessential Christie story about a murder with legendary detective Hercule Poirot on the case. Poirot’s investigation of Roger Ackroyd's murder is described from first-person perspective of Dr. James Sheppard, who assists the detective with the investigation of his friend's murder. But Christie's twist ending made readers question Sheppard's role as the narrator, leading to controversy, as some readers felt tricked by the author's unique way of telling the story.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Sometimes the unreliable narrator doesn't realize they're unreliable, such as Briony Tallis in Ian McEwan's Atonement. At only 13 years old, her interpretation of the events she witnesses is filtered through the lens of a young teenager who is still taken seriously because of her status in English society. It also doesn't help when the narrator's true identity—and mental state—are revealed at the end, forcing the reader to rethink the story through the now-unreliable narrator's lens.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Each of the three different narrators has their own reliability issues in The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, creating a novel with plenty of twists that forces readers to try and piece the story together themselves in order to figure out the truth. 

One of these narrators, Rachel, is open about her alcohol use, leading to blacked-out parts of her memory that she acknowledges are an issue when it comes to making sense of the events. The success of the 2015 book even led to an unreliable narrator trend through the latter half of that decade, including books like The Woman in Cabin 10 and The Woman in the Window.

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

American Psycho is a disturbing account of a serial killer in 1980s Manhattan—or is it? Narrator Patrick Bateman takes readers through his opinions on Whitney Houston albums, how he murders people, and the excesses that are typical of his job on Wall Street without so much as batting an eye. But soon, inaccuracies begin to pile up, forcing readers to question whether the events actually happened and why there's a gap between the truth and Bateman's version of his story.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

The classic novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey is told from the point of view of Chief Bromden, who tells the story of Randle McMurphy and his actions to challenge Nurse Ratched, the overseer of his psychiatric ward. But Bromden's first-person narration of events is clouded by the fact that he's a patient there who suffers from hallucinations. The first chapter already throws up red flags for readers, as it ends with Bromden admitting, “It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.”

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