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I finally get why our book club keeps fighting over unreliable narrators
It hit me last Tuesday at the diner on 5th and Main. My buddy Dave and I were hashing out last month's pick, that thriller where the main character lies every other page. Dave said something like, "You're mad at the book, but you're really mad that you trusted the narrator." And he was right. I spent three years blaming bad writing when the whole point was the author making me feel betrayed. Ever since then, I read every POV with suspicion, and it turned our debate from "is this good writing" to "what does the deception do to the story." Has anyone else had a comment like that completely reset how they argue a book choice?
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kai_chen21d ago
Man, I have to push back on this HARD. Half the time a narrator "lies" it's not some big clever trick, it's just the author covering for a plot that doesn't hold up. Dave's line sounds deep at a diner at midnight, but take it apart and it basically says every sloppy book is secretly genius because the confusion was "the point." That's a free pass for bad writing. Sometimes a book makes you feel tricked because it actually tricked you cheaply, and calling that bold is how we end up picking garbage for book club and then defending it for three months.
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