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Well, I didn't see that coming! It is the last week of August, meaning the last Top 5 Wednesday post of this month. September is nearly here, and autumn is on the horizon! I am not a big fan of autumn and winter, so I am now happy because I don't feel like I have had enough sun this year, and the cold weather always seems to outstay its welcome much longer than summer ever does. But enough on my narration of the seasons!
Narrators are the voices of many stories and can greatly impact how the story is interpreted. We are usually very trustworthy of our narrators, believing that what they are saying is correct due to their experience and often because they may have seen the events for themselves. This may be because this is exactly what we expect in non-fiction books, people who are being honest about things they are talking about. However, in fiction, things can be very different. So for this week’s post, let's look at books where the narrator’s credibility is questionable. This could be through lies, twisting the truth, or really anything else that makes you doubt their credibility. I will be honest I have found this week's prompt rather difficult. Let's get to it!
1. Witness 8 by Steve Cavanagh
So we start the post with Cavanagh's latest book in the Eddie Flynn series, which is because of Eddie Flynn as the narrator. Eddie seems like a mostly good person who likes to bring about justice, but he is also an ex-conman, and he seems to be a believer that once a conman, he is always a conman. There are so many examples of Eddie being unreliable and conning various characters and situations in the book. So I pose this question, how can we be sure that Eddie is telling us, the readers, the truth about everything which is happening? He may or may not be doing it intentionally but how can we be sure that Eddie may not be twisting the truth?
2. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
This book is probably one of the best examples of an unreliable narrator, with the narrator being Alex, who is the leader of the gang and enjoys taking part in ultraviolence, including murder and rape. Now there is one exception to Alex being unreliable as a narrator, and that is his taste of music and his description of Beethoven's Symphony No.9 as "all bliss" and "bliss, bliss and heaven" which is something which I don't think we can argue with. However, Alex's beliefs and enjoyment of ultraviolence are extremely questionable, and I think this makes Alex unreliable as a narrator. As well as this, Alex tries to get the reader's sympathy, but we are only seeing things from his perspective, which I may suggest is quite dangerous.
3. Phoenix by Ellie Simms
We now move on to Phoenix where Phoenix begins as a reliable narrator but by the end has become an unreliable narrator to the point she kills her friend. Phoenix is reliable at the start of the book and for the first short period of being in the sex camp where she was kidnapped but then as she appears to become more engaged and obedient, her beliefs and attitudes seem to match those of her bosses who enslaved her which essentially converted her to being one of them and thus no longer a reliable narrator.
4. Last Seen Online by Lauren James
This book is another good example of characters who are unreliable narrators due to lying and concealing the truth from the other characters as well as the parent's own son. Many would see this as questionable behaviour, and by the end of the book, the reader is let in to just how unreliable some of the characters are in this book. Luckily, the two main characters do seem to be reliable as they investigate the truth, which the unreliable characters are not happy about.
5. The Headmaster's List by Melissa de la Cruz
This final book presents an unreliable narrator in a different light, as this narrator is not maliciously being unreliable and misleading the reader. This character is recovering from a car crash where she lost her memory of the events and so she is trying to build up her memory again. Therefore, although she is misleading the reader this is not at all intentional.
That brings this final post of August 2024 to an end, so I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed writing it. Now that the cold weather of Autumn and Winter is getting ready to settle in (let's face it, it never really left) it means we are now approaching prime reading season as there is nothing better than being in a warm room, reading a good quality book! Therefore, please check out my blog with the various book reviews I have and my other Top 5 Wednesday posts. I am more than confident that you will find an interesting book that you will enjoy reading! Please do also say hello in the comments below and maybe share some of the books you have read with unreliable narrators! See you all next week for the first Top 5 Wednesday post of September!
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