5 gripping books with unreliable narrators

Room by Emma Donoghue

This is an unreliable narrator with a difference. The account given is not evil or intended to mislead but is, instead, the strange and poignant view of a child held in a monstrous situation. Room tells the story of a mother and child being held in a secured shed at the bottom of their psychopathic captor’s garden. The child, Jack, has never known life outside of the ‘room’ and his voice is not only that of an ordinary five-year-old but also an alien being for whom fresh air and school and playmates are things that only exist in books and on TV. In Room, Donoghue creates a heartbreakingly honest voice in Jack as well as a whole new vocabulary that transforms the most mundane of objects – a wardrobe, a bath, a truck – into magical talismans imbued with hope.

You by Caroline Kepnes

Narrated in the second person by bookstore worker Joe, You is a twisted love letter from the warped perspective of an obsessive stalker to the object of his affections, a female writer who he meets in the bookstore. His voice is pitch perfect and almost scattergun in its unpredictability and rage. The second person lends an intimacy to his words, so much so that, chillingly, it feels like he is whispering them in your ear. One of my favourite thrillers in recent years.