Unreliable narration is a writing technique which has been critically studied in academia over
the last 60 years and undoubtedly frequently used before this time. Detecting unreliable
narration and thereby judging someone as reliable or not is not only relevant in the study of
literature: First and foremost it is a social skill and as such a core competence of all
social interaction and construction. The social skill of detecting unreliable narration needs
to be honed and studying unreliable narration should not be confined to university classrooms
and lecture halls it is essential that it is expanded into our schools. This book illustrates
that the study of literature has the potential to counteract the habit and current absurdity of
limiting statements about reality to 280 characters with no context and hardly any content.
Drawing on current research from literary studies and psychology as well as medicine this
study explores new avenues of the application of psychological research to literary studies.
Theoretical approaches on unreliable narration agree that unreliable narrators show a high
degree of emotional involvement. The novels which compose this book's corpus showcase that this
high degree of emotional involvement is omnipresent directly connected to and caused by the
narrators' mental disorders namely obsession narcissism and alcoholism. Apart from enriching
the understanding of contemporary works by Zoë Heller Caroline Kepnes Bret Easton Ellis
Gillian Flynn Paula Hawkins and A.J. Finn this study establishes novels which display
unreliable narrators with mental deviations due to mental illnesses as literature with great
didactic potential. Relating the findings of research in the field of psychology the cognitive
sciences and literary studies to the question of the value of stories with narrators with
mental deviations this book demonstrates that literature has the potential to train especially
young adult readers for life.
