'I'm Thinking of Ending Things' is a slow-burn psychological horror-thriller that's all about an unreliable narrator. The young woman's internal monologue is at odds with the increasingly bizarre reality of the visit to her boyfriend's parents' farm. The dialogue feels scripted, the details are wrong, and you're trapped in her creeping dread, unsure what's real and what's her anxiety manifesting.
What defines 'unreliable' though? Is it just amnesia and alcoholism, or can it be ideological? In 'The Secret History', the narrator, Richard, is so enamored with the elitist Greek class that his retelling of the events leading to murder is steeped in romantic, tragic nostalgia. He's an unreliable historian of his own life,美化ing the darkness.
Cheers for the recs, everyone. My 'to-read' list just got a lot longer. I'm always a sucker for a narrative that makes me work to figure out what's really going on.
2026-07-23 10:31:24
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They All Said I Did It
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Before I could shove my wife, Cheryl Craig, into the ocean, I turned myself in.
The security guard frowned. "What? Are you saying that you're going to kill someone on this cruise?"
I nodded. "It's 5:05 p.m. right now. In 20 minutes, I'll push my wife off this cruise ship. You need to arrest me, now."
He stared at me like I had lost my mind. "You've got to be kidding! I've never seen anyone confess before the crime."
He waved me off and started to walk away, so I had no choice but to start smashing things in the lobby.
Only when the cuffs snapped around my wrists did I finally breathe again.
In my last life, Cheryl was pushed off this very ship and fell into the ocean. Before I could even finish arranging her funeral, the police came for me.
The ship's security footage clearly showed me pushing her overboard, but at that exact time, I was in a room with my father. There was no way I could've done it.
I asked my father to testify for me, but he said I had already been planning to kill Cheryl for the insurance money because my company was falling apart.
In the end, I was sentenced to death for murder.
Even as I faced execution, I still couldn't understand it.
I didn't do it, so why did everyone insist that I had?
When I opened my eyes again, I was back to before Cheryl fell into the ocean.
Hayden is a perfect husband for Riz. He's sweet, self-orientated and a successful doctor. They are living happily until a crime happened in their city.
A crime of the past.
Suddenly, their peaceful life will be fully be entangled into the world of serial killing.
It will confuse their life, their marriage and trust especially when Riz started to doubt her own husband's personality.
It doesn't make sense.
Is her husband the serial killer?
The prettiest girl in our class, Mandy Smith, died unexpectedly in our dorm.
When the police took statements, my two other roommates and I pleaded guilty.
I took out Mandy’s love letter to my boyfriend. “I killed her because she was seducing my boyfriend.”
Anna Anderson took out a purchase history for cyanide. “I killed her because she snatched my overseas studies spot from me.”
Fiona Lee took out an expulsion letter. “I killed her because she reported me for cheating.”
All three of us hated Mandy.
However, the police found that all of us had alibis during Mandy’s time of death. The counselor also asked us to stop lying.
However, the three of us sneered. “Whether you believe it or not, one of us is the murderer.”
Fifteen years ago, my parents-in-law were cut into pieces. My wife and I spent years searching for the killer.
One day, I came back from the market and found that the neighbor’s family had been murdered in the same way.
At the crime scene, I saw the neighbor’s face in the mirror.
I rushed out and chased him.
I was just about to catch him when my wife stopped and handcuffed me with her own hands.
“Drop the act. You’re the killer!”
Lying and holding secrets comes to us naturally, as natural as breathing and looking on either side of the road before crossing. We all do it to protect ourselves because sometimes the truth can hurt us.Some are harmless little white lies, but some secrets hide horrible things. Those lies will always come haunting those who seek to keep their lips sealed. Follow Caroline, Charlotte, Chloe, and Caleb's journey, as their life is turned upside down as they fight to keep their lips sealed about the murder they accidentally committed.Everyone keeps secrets. Everyone lies. You better make sure no one saw what you've done before making up your lies because all it takes is one person with the truth on their lips for your life to be destroyed.
Paul Tremblay's 'The Cabin at the End of the World' uses ambiguity as a weapon. The narration is third-person but closely focused on one family's perspective during a home invasion by strangers claiming to be preventing the apocalypse. Are the invaders telling the truth? Is this a cosmic event or a psychotic break? The book refuses to give a definitive answer, making the reader grapple with the same terrifying uncertainty as the characters. The 'unreliability' here is in the nature of reality itself, which is somehow even scarier.
Hmm, I'm trying to think of a good historical mystery that uses this. Maybe something where the narrator is a chronicler or diarist with a clear agenda, like they're writing for a specific audience and slanting the facts. That political or personal bias could make for a fascinatingly untrustworthy guide through a thriller plot.
Got a real deep cut: 'The City & the City' by China Miéville. Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Besźel Extreme Crime Squad investigates a murder that crosses into the neighboring city of Ul Qoma. The 'unreliability' is societal and perceptual; citizens of both cities are trained from birth to 'unsee' the other city, even when they physically occupy the same space. Borlú's own perceptions are thus legally and psychologically mandated to be incomplete. He must detect a truth that his entire culture forces him to ignore, making his observational skills fundamentally fractured. It's a genius metaphorical take on the trope.