The best example for me is We Need to Talk About Kevin.
A majority of the book is the character going on and on, or sharing what matters or what's on her mind. The things that actively happen or happened are sometimes short and sweet and are very easy to imagine. Regardless of what mood I am, I enjoy it because if I'm sick or tired I can just gloss over the text without actively thinking and then I can go think about it later, and if I'm really in the mood to read I have whole paragraphs of someone else's brain to pick through.
With these books, especially We Need to Talk About Kevin, the narrator presents herself the way that she wants to be seen. She says a lot of things that I either agree with or disagree with or things I can think about, and the distance makes it so there's less room for interpretation and there's only so much room for my opinions.
. I am not ever going to be able to help her or educate her or put my own two cents in. I'm stuck in my own brain, which is great when I need cathartic stress and it's an aspect of horror that many things don't maintain. It adds a layer to unreliable narrator as well. If she ever backpedals or refers back to something and tries to weave, I have to accept it. If she turns a situation into something it must likely isn't, it is the way it is and that's the only way it can be. In the case where she is lying, she's just going to lie to herself for 400 pages straight to the point where she believes herself and since she has 400 pages to work with, she often gets close to convincing me that my beliefs aren't truly my beliefs or making me feel bad for her when I am upset with her. She is completely in control, I can't ask questions and I can't try to predict or infer.
(But at the same time, the story is more in my control than a normal story would be just because information is presented in a way where I'm not always going to get an answer for something that happens or I just have to take it as presented or I take only what is given and we're probably not coming back to said topic in a pivotal way, so I can use my imagination and build my own story.)
In general for books that are based on diary entries or based on a character's recollection of events, passive is good. it is much easier to actually believe the character and get immersed. For one, the character is more fleshed out and two, I can 100% believe the main character or narrator telling me about their life or feelings or general vibes with a few key events mixed in compared to a character remembering a whole day or a whole month or an entire set of events. The latter only works when there is indeed an unreliable narrator, the narrator has a condition that allows superior memory or the character's intentionally trying to tell the story and they're going to fabricate the hell out of it and pull it out of pocket. For me personally, the story has to be really well done and I have to care quite a bit to actually follow something like that.
by TUD-13BarryAllen