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Book review crime fiction psychological thriller reading suspense thriller unreliable narrator

Read & Review (R&R) – The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

This month my book club read the psychological thriller “The Housemaid” by Freida McFadden.

Right from the above opening lines I was hooked. “If I leave this house, it will be in handcuffs. I should have run for it while I had the chance. Now my shot is gone.” – Prologue

This story was definitely a page-turner filled with a major plot twist in the end that I didn’t see coming.

Millie Calloway has recently lost her job and is living out of her car. When she is offered employment as the housekeeper for the wealthy Winchester family, Millie jumps at the chance. Anything is better than sleeping in her car-even a small cot in the attic bedroom with a sealed shut window and a door with a lock on the outside. Her new employer, Nina Winchester is constantly making messes and confusing dates and times. Nina’s husband, Andrew is charismatic, intelligent, and rich. He treats Millie well. Soon, Millie starts to like Andrew and imagines what it would be like to be his wife. Millie will do anything to stay employed with the Winchesters, including ignoring major red flags popping up in the household.

This is a well-written story with unreliable narrators, gaslighting, major plot twists, and chilling menace throughout.

Believe me when I say in this book, things are not always what they seem!

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Book review crime fiction mystery reading suspense thriller unreliable narrator

Read and Review (R&R) – “We Were Never Here” by Andrea Bartz

When two best friends travel, what could go wrong? How about a hookup turned violent and deadly? Not once but twice – I guess lightening can strike more than once.

If you enjoy psychological thrillers, this book may interest you.

I enjoyed the travel and psychological twists and turns. The friendship element drew me in, but then really it creeped me out. Gaslighting~there was a lot of it. The inner monologue was a bit long and the boyfriend a bit too sweet. So as not to put a spoiler, I will simply say, I would have enjoyed a different ending.

I agree with several reviewers who pointed out that this would make a good Netflix movie.

And…, what is up with the last line of the book? No way could it happen again…

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new adult fiction new adult writing genre Uncategorized unreliable narrator writing

Unreliable Narrator

I recently started delving into a new genre of writing – adult/new adult fiction. When writing my recent manuscript, I decided to use an unreliable narrator. Thought I would pass on websites that provided definitions/examples I found helpful. Thank you Writer’s Digest and Education Portal. Happy writing!

Text from Writer’s Digest article:
When we select the first person we’re tempted to write as we speak. This can lead to undisciplined writing, potentially yielding rambling or flat, one-dimensional prose.

The tradeoff, though, can be authenticity. “There is no such thing as a third-person viewpoint in life,” Morrell explains. Which means you might say first person POV is the most true-to-life perspective from which to tell a story.

First-person narrators can be unreliable narrators (and often the best ones are), leaving what happened open to interpretation—and, in the hands of a skilled writer, this can add amazing depth to a story, as evidenced so expertly in the best known works of Mark Twain and J.D. Salinger. Stories like theirs demand to be told in first person—in fact, Morrell points out they could not be effectively told in any other way.

His key takeaway? Write in first-person only if you have a compelling reason to.
http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/improve-my-writing/understand-the-ins-and-outs-of-first-person-pov

Education Portal definition/example:
Unreliable narrators are a type of first-person-driven narratives that give the audience the opportunity to make their own interpretations of a story.
First-person narrators are characters within the story telling the events of the plot from their perspective. Sometimes these characters deviate from the truth or have mental conditions that limit their abilities to tell the story accurately. We call these characters unreliable narrators.
Definition
An unreliable narrator is a character whose telling of the story is not completely accurate or credible due to problems with the character’s mental state or maturity. Some literary critics argue that there is no such thing as a reliable first-person narrator since every character is affected by his or her past experiences in the telling of a story, but most first-person narrators attempt to give the most accurate version of events. An unreliable narrator, however, holds a distorted view of the events, which leads to an inaccurate telling of the story, but this can give readers/viewers a chance to offer their own interpretations.
The term ‘unreliable narrator’ was first used by Wayne C. Booth in 1961 in The Rhetoric of Fiction. Since then, many authors and filmmakers use the technique to create interest and suspense in their narration. Some indicators that a narrator is unreliable include contradicting stories, incomplete explanations of events, illogical information, and even questions of the narrator’s sanity.
Modern Novel Examples:
Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl actually uses two unreliable narrators. The book is told through alternating accounts of Nick Dunne and the diary entries of his wife, Amy Dunne. Since their version of events in their struggling marriage conflict, the reader is unsure of which character to trust. It is later revealed that both characters lie, which makes both of them unreliable.
The above text/definitions/examples were taken from http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/unreliable-narrator-definition-examples.html#lesson