10 Psychological Novels Guaranted To Mess With Your Mind

7. The Collector By John Fowles

It's quite slow, and it's not particularly dramatic, but there's something incredibly sinister in this weird novel which, in short, is about a kidnapping. The novel is about a lonely young man called Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk in a city hall, and collects butterflies in his spare time. He's obsessed with a middle-class art student called Miranda, and kidnaps her in order to make her love him - ridiculous, we know. The novel is split into two voices,making Miranda's experience appear even more harrowing, especially when her voice ends half way through because - spoiler alert - she dies. The ending is cold and calculated; upon finding Miranda, Clegg considers killing himself. But then he nonchalantly decides that he is not responsible for what happened to her and is better off without her. The book ends with his announcement that he plans to kidnap another girl. If this isn't the mind of a psychopath, we're not sure what is. Clegg is a chilled out type of crazy, but crazy he is none the less. Fowles used the books to explore the limits and expectations of the class system - so if you're a female art student from a well-off background, you might want to avoid reading this novel.