First person, I like to read up on.

[Britva415]

If you enjoy SciFi/Fantasy, I warmly suggest Red Rising by Pierce Brown. It's a coming-of-age story in a dystopian society, packed with action and emotion. And the author doesn't shy away from killing off characters.

I have been loving this series, but it isn't one which I would necessarily hold up as a great example of first-person narrative.

Like... I can see it. But in my opinion, it's flawed by being narrated in present tense, by grammatically fucking up timeframe shifts when they're necessary, and by headhopping without narrative justification.

Two of those are bad storytelling. One of them is merely flawed proofreading.

I'd offer some of the Harry Bosch novels by Michael Connelly. Some of them are narrated in first person, some are not. But I don't remember ever being pulled out of immersion by mistakes in execution of 1p.

Other than those among these novels which interleave chapters of 1p MC perspective with 3p perspectives of some other character(s).

I don't have my library handy right here now, so, no specific titles to recommend, but, in general, the earlier the novel publication, the more likely to have the MC's unadulterated 1p perspective.

 

[Britva415]

headhopping without narrative justification.

I do believe that it's possible to storytell a headhop from the 1p voice, but it absolutely has to be narratively justified. That means that the narration has to explain or show why/how the 1p narrator can know and tell the other person's perspective/thoughts/feelings/experience/motivation/factual knowledge.

So, a 1p narrative headhop which fails to justify it is pretty vigorously flawed.

 

[WaxPhilosophic]

Also "Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Yeah, it's from 1925, but... it's first person, narrated by someone (Nick Carraway) who is not the main character (Jay Gatsby). That makes for an interesting first person, because you can't get inside Jay Gatsby's head, old sport. You have to take Nick's perspective on things.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I have been loving this series, but it isn't one which I would necessarily hold up as a great example of first-person narrative.

Like... I can see it. But in my opinion, it's flawed by being narrated in present tense, by grammatically fucking up timeframe shifts when they're necessary, and by headhopping without narrative justification.

Two of those are bad storytelling. One of them is merely flawed proofreading.

I'd offer some of the Harry Bosch novels by Michael Connelly. Some of them are narrated in first person, some are not. But I don't remember ever being pulled out of immersion by mistakes in execution of 1p.

Other than those among these novels which interleave chapters of 1p MC perspective with 3p perspectives of some other character(s).

I don't have my library handy right here now, so, no specific titles to recommend, but, in general, the earlier the novel publication, the more likely to have the MC's unadulterated 1p perspective.

I absolutely agree. I wrote almost the exact same thing in a thread like a year ago about books 4, 5, and 6 when the headhopping started. I hated it, but I had to forgive it as I was too invested in the story.

But first person works flawlessly for the first three books.

 

[Britva415]

I absolutely agree. I wrote almost the exact same thing in a thread like a year ago about books 4, 5, and 6 when the headhopping started. I hated it, but I had to forgive it as I was too invested in the story.

But first person works flawlessly for the first three books.

I'm only up to book 3

 

[Britva415]

Also "Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Yeah, it's from 1925, but... it's first person, narrated by someone (Nick Carraway) who is not the main character (Jay Gatsby). That makes for an interesting first person, because you can't get inside Jay Gatsby's head, old sport. You have to take Nick's perspective on things.

I feel like Kerouac's On The Road approaches that, too.

I mean, it will be controversial to imply that Neal Cassady/Dean Moriarty was "the main character" but

 

[ColtonWrites]

Also "Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Yeah, it's from 1925, but... it's first person, narrated by someone (Nick Carraway) who is not the main character (Jay Gatsby). That makes for an interesting first person, because you can't get inside Jay Gatsby's head, old sport. You have to take Nick's perspective on things.

I agree - fantastic example of 1st person storytelling. And it holds up as far as being an older book - you'd hardly know it was written that long ago.

 

[WaxPhilosophic]

"Catcher in the Rye" by JD Salinger is another good example of first person narration. 1950s, but still a good read.

 

[Djmac1031]

Dracula, by Bram Stoker.

Just finished revisiting it via audio book. Its 1st person but from multiple characters viewpoints.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Orson Scott Card's Treason is another good one. It was his second published novel, and he has said that he wishes he HADN'T written it in first person. He felt it unnecessarily limited what he could do in the story, but he was a new writer and didn't know better.

 

[SimonDoom]

Here are some good examples of first person, from different genres, I can think of:

Dickens, David Copperfield.
Twain, Huckleberry Finn.
Salinger, Catcher in the Rye.
Nabokov, Lolita
Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres. This is an interesting retelling of the King Lear story set in a modern Iowa farm, told by the daughter who corresponds with one of the "bad" daughters, Goneril.
Gardener, Grendel. A retelling of the Beowulf story from the point of view of the monster. Great book.
Andy Weir, The Martian. Very well executed and imaginative "hard" sci fi story, told from the point of view of the man stranded on Mars.
Molly Weatherfield, Carrie's Story. A BDSM story told from the point of view of an intelligent young woman who is drawn into the world of being a submissive. Probably the best I've read of this sort of story. Kind of like Story of O, but more satisfying, IMO, because the main character is more fleshed out and has more agency.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Jacqueline Carey's Cassiel's Servant is first-person from the perspective of someone who is, inevitably, the dumbest person in whatever room he's in. It's an alternate-perspective retelling of Kushiel's Dart, where the first-person character is usually the smartest person in the room. That novel is a combination romantic fantasy/BDSM story. They make an interesting first-person comparison. Servant's Joscelin is prideful, straightforward, tradition-bound and unsubtle. Dart's Phedre is just as prideful in the opposite direction, much more emotionally complex and melodramatic, very observant and very sneaky. Since for a large part of both books they're experiencing the same events, it's a great case study in creating different feelings and tone through first-person narration.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Fairy Tale is a very rare 1st person story from Stephen King.

 

[StillStunned]

Something contemorary, any thoughts.

Some people in this thread have a very broad definition of "contemporary".

 

[Britva415]

Its 1st person but from multiple characters viewpoints

Ew

 

[StillStunned]

Ew

I started reading "Five Broken Blades" by Mai Corland, which came highly recommended. But it's told in 1P from about four different points of view, switching between chapters. Not only is it confusing, I don't see what using 1P adds. It feels as if the author is using 1P as a cheap way to engage the reader, without actually understanding how to do it. It makes the reader's experience shallower than you'd get with close 3P.

Then again, Mai Corland is commercially successful, so presumably lots of people feel differently.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I love Murderbot so much; as someone who is neurodivergent and generally wants to be left alone, I relate on a visceral level.

Yeah, MB helped change how I think about my neurodivergence. It's kind of the anti-Pinocchio: it's not about a thing becoming a person, it's about a person who refuses to be treated like a thing.

Since this is a recs thread, I'll mention that one of the things that series does really well is "first person unreliable narrator" - MB is generally truthful about events, but struggles to understand its own emotional state, and often what it says about its feelings is contradicted by its actions.

 

[Britva415]

I started reading "Five Broken Blades" by Mai Corland, which came highly recommended. But it's told in 1P from about four different points of view, switching between chapters. Not only is it confusing, I don't see what using 1P adds. It feels as if the author is using 1P as a cheap way to engage the reader, without actually understanding how to do it. It makes the reader's experience shallower than you'd get with close 3P.

Then again, Mai Corland is commercially successful, so presumably lots of people feel differently.

I've said elsewhere that to me one of the major flaws of 1p which is almost never mitigated/handled/addressed is "frame."

Having multiple 1°p POVs in the same manuscript doesn't just add to that, doesn't just multiply the problem, it exponentiates it.

⁴

 

[Bramblethorn]

Fairy Tale is a very rare 1st person story from Stephen King.

King has plenty of first-person stories though? Off the top of my head: "Strawberry Spring", "The Green Mile", two-thirds of "Christine", "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption". I think it's more common with his short stories, but looks like he has several other first-person novels:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ConstantReader/comments/iozf7x/stephen_king_books_written_in_firstperson

 

[Djmac1031]

Ew

Guess you wouldn't like Frankenstein either, then. Told from first Victor's POV, then the Creature.

 

[TheLobster]

Guess you wouldn't like Frankenstein either, then. Told from first Victor's POV, then the Creature.

That doesn't make sense. I have it on good authority, based on the entirety of pop-culture at large, that Frankenstein is the creature. Surely everyone cannot be mixing that up...?

 

[EmilyMiller]

Guess you wouldn't like Frankenstein either, then. Told from first Victor's POV, then the Creature.

Anything can work if written well. Anything can be awful if written poorly.

 

[SimonDoom]

One of the really interesting things to try with first person POV is the "unrevealing narrator," where the narrator, telling the story in first person, COULD reveal everything to you as a reader, but chooses not to, keeping you in suspense until the end. It's tricky, but when done well it's very suspenseful.

A good example is Scott Turow's crime thriller Presumed Innocent, which is told from the point of view of a prosecuting attorney who is charged with the murder of a fellow prosecutor with whom he had an affair. Throughout the novel you wonder about his guilt or innocence, and you don't learn the truth until the end. Turow is a very good writer, too.

Another great example of this style of first person narration is Agatha Christie's novel The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd.

 

[YmaOHyd]

King has plenty of first-person stories though? Off the top of my head: "Strawberry Spring", "The Green Mile", two-thirds of "Christine", "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption". I think it's more common with his short stories, but looks like he has several other first-person novels:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ConstantReader/comments/iozf7x/stephen_king_books_written_in_firstperson

The best sections in It are the ones in first-person from Mike Hanlon's perspective, and I think the best of those are the ones in nested first-person: Mike Hanlon's first-person POV receiving a story from a third party which is itself told in the first person. Done artfully, it puts the reader in three separate times. When Mike's father tells him about the fire at the Black Spot, you're simultaneously in 1985 as the diary is being written, in 1962 as the story is being told, and in 1930 as the events of the story unfold.

 

[Britva415]

Guess you wouldn't like Frankenstein either, then. Told from first Victor's POV, then the Creature.

I haven't read it, but, how are the two narratives framed? Even more to the point, how are they framed together?

Possible answers are:
Compellingly and believably
Sensibly and plausibly
Weirdly and jarringly
Not at all
Not at all, but the writing and the story are good enough that one doesn't notice or care.