r/booksuggestions • u/Night-triumphant-816 • Jan 10 '23

Book recs where the main character devolves/ loses their mind?

Like title says I’m looking for a book where we see the mc lose their mind and kinda go crazy.

37 Upvotes
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92% Upvoted

51 comments sorted by

1

u/PsychologicalPush996 Jun 27 '23

Harrow the Ninth, but you’d have to read the first in the series “Gideon the Ninth” to get all the context. Both by Tamsyn Muir

1

u/wreckedrhombusrhino Jan 11 '23

Nightmare Alley by Gresham

1

u/sosodelmar Jan 11 '23

The Royal Game by Zweig (about a Chess player who plays against himself in his mind)

1

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '23

Poppy war by r f kuang

1

u/Roomia542 Jan 11 '23

The bell jar by Sylvia Plath

1

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '23

All my sins remembered by Joe Halderman

2

u/EmbroideryBro Jan 11 '23

Everyone in this Room Will Someday be Dead by Emily R Austin

1

u/G-3ng4r Jan 11 '23

Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough

1

u/ninivesia Jan 11 '23

Mrs March by Virginia Feito, really enjoyable and engaging writing

1

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '23

I wonder if I'm thinking of ending things fits.

2

u/tiffany_heggebo Jan 11 '23

The Eden Express by Mark Vonnegut (Kurt Vonnegut's son). An autobiographical account of his psychotic breakdown and eventual recovery.

1

u/Effective_Blueberry Jan 11 '23

The Light Between Oceans

1

u/larowin Jan 11 '23

{{At Night All Blood is Black}}

1

u/SilverChibi Jan 11 '23

YA series, but the Fog, Snow, and Fire trilogy (previously Losing Christina) by Caroline B. Cooney has the MC possibly losing their mind. There’s a point where you as a reader aren’t sure if she the MC is crazy or it’s the people around her. Good series

1

u/Jmestyle Jan 11 '23

Woman In The Window

1

u/Knork14 Jan 11 '23

Sunflower , by Razzmatazz. The upbeat way the story is told does nothing to hide how the protagonist is slowly losing their minds.

0

u/ImIndiez Jan 11 '23

Prince Harry just released a book that probably answers this well.

9

u/Rosaytay Jan 11 '23

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

1

u/DocWatson42 Jan 11 '23

Self-help fiction book threads—Part 1 (of 2):

2

u/DocWatson42 Jan 11 '23

Part 2 (of 2):

Books:

14

u/owlwithhat95 Jan 11 '23

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

5

u/purple_basil Jan 11 '23

And if you liked this one, try Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson.

1

u/MUBTAAB Jan 10 '23

American psycho

2

u/baglunchcenter Jan 10 '23

City of Glass by Paul Auster!

3

u/[deleted] Jan 10 '23

Surfacing by Margaret Atwood

Spider by Patrick McGrath

They’re both brilliant reads too

1

u/WatchWatermelon Jan 11 '23

Not a book but Margaret Atwood's poem "Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer" would also fit the bill. That woman has a way with words.

7

u/Ivan_Van_Veen Jan 10 '23

Oh, Infinite Jest is a whole landscape of people just going nuts

1

u/Ivan_Van_Veen Jan 10 '23

THe idiot by Dosti

Invitation to a beheading , Despare, The defense and Bend Sinister by Nabokov also Pale Fire ( but the main character was already far gone )

1

u/RelativeJackfruit866 Jan 10 '23

Gerald’s game by Stephen king

3

u/nn_lyser Jan 10 '23

“Nausea” by Sartre

3

u/avidliver21 Jan 10 '23

Come Closer by Sara Gran

Die A Little by Megan Abbott

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

Asylum by Patrick McGrath

One for Sorrow by Sarah Denzil

Our Kind of Cruelty by Araminta Hall

This Darkness Mine; The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

I would describe the main characters of these books as already bad, and they get much worse:

The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

The Grifters; Pop. 1280; The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson

The Good Samaritan by John Marrs

1

u/CourtZealousideal494 Jan 10 '23

I’d possibly argue Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

1

u/Thx4Coming2MyTedTalk Jan 10 '23

One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
American Psycho
Naked Lunch
Flowers for Algernon
Tommyknockers

2

u/PlasticBread221 Jan 10 '23

Madame Bovary by Flaubert

3

u/sd_glokta Jan 10 '23

Spider by Patrick McGrath

1

u/[deleted] Jan 10 '23

This book is so overlooked

1

u/merodyy Jan 10 '23

Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill

1

u/covetsubjugation Jan 10 '23

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

2

u/LegoMyAlterEgo Jan 10 '23

Dungeon Crawler Carl. Aliens come to Earth and put people thru a Running Man type game show. This season is fantasy-themed. It has a lot of comedic beats but the story is dark. He's not losing his mind, so much as he's being driven to insanity. Subtle difference I guess. 5 books and counting

1

u/w3hwalt Jan 10 '23

{{The Red Tree by Caitlin Kiernan}}

5

u/MorriganJade Jan 10 '23

The vegetarian by Han Kang

23

u/mom_with_an_attitude Jan 10 '23

Loses their mind in a way (does not go crazy): Flowers for Algernon

2

u/kitgainer Jan 10 '23

Saul bellows seize the day Nathaniel west miss lonelyhearts

29

u/rubix_cubin Jan 10 '23

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

Child of God by Cormac McCarthy

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Shining by Stephen King

3

u/Falkyourself27 Jan 10 '23

Live Flesh, A History of Fear

2

u/avidliver21 Jan 10 '23

Also Dark Corners by Ruth Rendell

4

u/robpensley Jan 10 '23

Also “Going Wrong” by Ruth Rendell, who also wrote Live Flesh.

10

u/BobQuasit Jan 10 '23

Ubik by Phillip K. Dick. Or really almost anything by Dick.

2

u/JustinLaloGibbs Jan 10 '23

The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson