This year’s challenge is a bit different and as promised each month we’ll give you a list of suggested books for each category. For November I asked the Cwts Discussion Group to recommend their favourite novel with an unreliable narrator.
Here are a few of the suggestions:
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world.
Villette – Charlotte Bronte
When Lucy Snowe leaves England to look for a new life on the Continent she has no idea what lies in store for her. This quiet, lonely girl must learn quickly when she finds herself teaching in a foreign school, with no friends or family to rely on.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected also that someone had been blackmailing her. Now, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with a drug overdose.
Black Out – Lisa Unger
On the surface, Annie Powers’s life in a wealthy Florida beach neighbourhood is happy and idyllic. Her husband, Gray, loves her fiercely; together, they dote on their beautiful young daughter, Victory. But the bubble surrounding Annie is pricked when she senses that the demons of her past have resurfaced and, to her horror, are now creeping up on her.
We Were Liars – E. Lockhart
We are the Liars. We are beautiful, privileged and live a life of carefree luxury. We are cracked and broken. A story of love and romance. A tale of tragedy. Which are lies? Which is truth?
The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes
Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Now Tony is retired. He’s had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises.
The Haunting Of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
Four seekers have arrived at the rambling old pile known as Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of psychic phenomena; Theodora, his lovely assistant; Luke, the future inheritor of the estate; and Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman with a dark past.
Eileen – Otessa Moshfegh
The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop. Trapped between caring for her alcoholic father and her job as a secretary at the boys’ prison, she tempers her dreary days with dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, her nights and weekends are filled with shoplifting and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father’s messes.
This list also has some great suggestions – 20 Recommended Books With An Unreliable Narrator.
Pick a book from our list, from the links above or pick something that’s already in your TBR pile. What ever you decide, don’t forget to let us know what you’re reading over on Cwts Club Discussion Group.
For Reading Addicts Reading Challenge 2024
For Reading Addicts Reading Challenge 2023 – Read a Rainbow – October