5 Delightfully Disturbing Narrators

David Federman in Loner, by Teddy Wayne
Wayne’s Justin Bieber-inspired The Love Song of Jonny Valentine was so real it hurt. Expect to feel similarly empathetic toward Harvard freshman David Federman (rhymes with “fader,” as in, he fades into the background) despite the fact that you won’t want to; he’s stalking a female classmate. Smart and obsessive, lonely (though not socially clueless, which actually makes his experiences more painful to read about), David straddles the line between “normal” and not. It’s a testament to his precise narrative voice—filled with astute observations about millennial life—that readers will relate to his struggles despite cringing over his choices. Pair with You, by Caroline Kepnes, if you’re feeling daring.

Celeste Price in Tampa, by Alissa Nutting
Squirm-inducing, hilarious, and shocking from its first page to its last, Tampa centers on a 26-year-old junior high school teacher who is repulsed by her 31-year-old husband; he’s far too old to sexually excite her. Celeste is a cunning predator, and though her actions are horrifying, her sociopathic narration is priceless: dark, sarcastic, and impossible to turn away from. Her POV also provokes uncomfortable questions about gender. If a criminal is young, gorgeous, and female, and if her “hesitantly polite,” barely teenaged male prey appears to reciprocate her selfish desire, has a crime taken place? (YES! But the fact that society often cracks jokes about “hot female teachers” and their “lucky” students muddies the morality of Celeste’s actions despite their irrefutable wrongness.) Celeste’s chilling “justifications” for her behavior will haunt you.

Narrator of Security, by Gina Wohlsdorf
An affiliate of the luxurious Manderley Resort in Santa Barbara, our Rhodes Scholar/former Navy SEAL narrator calmly describes the murder spree taking place throughout the building. Why does he so callously observe the action from the security monitors instead of trying to stop it? The answer will break your heart, and tempt you to set the book down and give Wohlsdorf a standing ovation. As the macabre death scenes add up, readers will fall in love with hotel supervisor Tessa and her childhood love, Brian, while knowing full well the lovebirds’ reunion might be short-lived. The twists and turns are fantastic, but it’s the novel’s unexpectedly romantic framework that puts this thriller in a class of its own.

Eileen in Eileen, by Ottessa Moshfegh
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Eileen tells the story of a self-loathing (and everyone-else-loathing) anorexic young woman who lives with her verbally abusive, alcoholic father while working at a boys’ prison in the 1960s. Now several decades removed from the bizarre, prison-related crime she eventually partakes in, the older Eileen admits, “My old deadpan stare would terrify me if I saw it in the mirror today. Looking back I’d say I was barely civilized. There was a reason I worked at the prison, after all.” Dependent on laxatives, judgmental, and frankly gross at times, Eileen the person is mesmerizing as a narrator, and Eileen the book is a tour de force. “Like all intelligent young women, I hid my shameful perversions under a façade of prudishness.” Luckily for us, she doesn’t hide them from her readers. Dig in, and don’t be afraid to get your fingernails dirty.

“A” in You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, by Alexandra Kleeman
A young woman known only as “A” (her roommate is B, her boyfriend C) believes her roommate is taking over her identity, and she’s probably right. After running away (well, across the street) and squatting in a neighbor’s abandoned house, she eventually joins a hunger cult called the Church of the Conjoined Eater. The cult’s participants are only allowed to consume Kandy Kakes, a dessert composed entirely of chemicals. Descriptions of TV (mainly creepy game shows and dystopian-flavored commercials) provide an unsettling glimpse into A’s world—a world in which something called Disappearing Dad Disorder is increasingly common. Most disturbing, though, is the fact that A’s consumerist society and ours are not exactly strangers, especially when viewed through the lens of A’s possible body dysmorphia.