I think every first-person narrator in a novel should be compromised. I prefer that word to 'unreliable.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
One of the fun things about unreliable narrators is they can be funny. You can admire things about them and laugh with them.
Using a first-person narrator is simply a matter of hearing the voice inside yourself.
I almost always use first person voice in my novels. It has its limitations, but it gives a sense of immediacy that's hard to create with an anonymous, all-seeing narrator.
I feel it's very important to let individual writers' voices come through. But the character has to be consistent.
Writers don't have to keep themselves honest. They have to keep themselves accurate.
I normally write in the first person, and my narrators are as real to me as any of the people I have worked with. They live and breathe in my imagination.
First-person narrators is the way I know how to write a book with the greatest power and chance of artistic success.
My preferred style is to write in first person, so I always have to play around with possible narrator voices until I find something that works.
A reader should encounter themselves in a novel, I think.
When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person.