I had to take a few days to mull over my thoughts on this one because Lisa Jewell has once again left me speechless. This bone-chilling psychological thriller will have you on the edge of your seat. I couldn't flip the pages fast enough. The ending left me absolutely reeling.

Josie and Alix meet while celebrating their 45th birthdays at the same restaurant. Although being born on the same day and in the same hospital and living their whole lives in close proximity, Alix and Josie are two very different people. Josie is a wife to a much older man and mother to two grown children. She works a mundane part time job as a seamstress. Alix is married with two young children, living in her dream house, and hosts a popular podcast about women empowerment. Josie convinces Alix to listen to her story and interview her for her podcast. She tells her that she has a lot to say as she's hit 45 and is reflecting on her life choices thus far. The farther Alix gets into the podcast, the more complicated things become. Is Josie the victim of years long abuse, or is there more than meets the eye? Alix soon finds herself in the midst of her very own true crime story.

Read if you like:
Unreliable Narrators
Dual POV/Timelines
Ambiguous Endings
Fast-Paced Suspense
True Crime Podcasts
Psychological Thrillers
Twists and Turns

4.5⭐️ rounded up to 5

Wowie Zowie! This was a great fast-paced read! It wasn't a "who-done-it?" kind of story. But it was a thriller nonetheless! I loved the two women main characters and hearing both their sides of the story. And I loved the interviews/documentary feel by throwing in the Netflix angle. Really clever and great story-telling! Loved every minute of it!
Thank you SO MUCH NetGalley and Atria for providing a copy.

This thriller was SO good and twisty. I absolutely love Lisa's writing, and I found myself unable to put this one down. I completely enjoyed this wild ride!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy of None of This is True by Lisa Jewell. Two women meet by chance and find out they are "birthday twins" and become entangled in one another's life from that point on. Super interesting and disturbing, but I loved it!

4 1/2 stars. I want to start by saying: this was absolutely riveting. I inhaled this book. The only way the pages could have turned faster is if I had more hours in my day.

The reason I am not giving None of This Is True five stars, which I thought I would for 95% of the book, is that I feel conflicted about the ending. Maybe it is because I have certain expectations from Jewell at this point, and the ending here didn't fit with them... I just know that I wanted more from the final chapters. In a way, it felt unfinished. Could there be a sequel lined up?

But back to me gushing about the stuff I loved because this is a cracktastic ride.

Jewell throws together two women-- birthday twins, born on the same day in the same hospital -- from very different backgrounds. Alix Summer, with her seemingly perfect life as a podcaster and her seemingly perfect family in their beautiful house, and Josie, a woman from a council estate with a past filled with abuse, grooming and who-knows-what other horrors.

When Josie proposes she be a guest on Alix's podcast to tell the story of her life, Alix is curious about this strange woman. Josie lets Alix into her life and history through the podcast and Alix, in turn, gradually lets Josie into her life too. But the more Alix comes to know Josie and her past, the more she worries she's made a terrible mistake.

Lots of short, punchy chapters, interspersed with a Netflix documentary and podcast extracts, all make for a very fast-paced read. You know bad shit has happened from the start, maybe reeeaaaaalllly bad shit, but I didn't have a clue what, exactly, had gone down, and I was desperate to find out.

Alix's life is nowhere near as shiny as it appears on the surface and Josie is just a fascinating character. Peeling apart the layers of her backstory, discovering her childhood, her role as a mother, and the lies she has told, was pure heart-pounding fun!

The wait for Jewell's next book will be too long.

I enjoyed a twists at the end. Two lives are more connected and mixed then what is seamed. Is one of them crazy or just killer.

O.M.G. 🙀 I binged this book on our way home from Idaho yesterday. Looking back at the beginning of the book I would have NEVER guessed how it would end .😅This was creepy, twisty, and disturbing. I loved it. BRB on my way to read every Lisa Jewell book.

I liked the characters and it had an interesting premise but I did get lost in the time hops. There were times I would stop and wish that it had rolled out a little differently. Altogether just okay!

I really liked this book. The twists and turns were wild and caught me off guard. However, like a few other reviews remarked, there were quite a few dark topics in this book that just were not handled very well. I also wish the ending was more concise.

This was an excellent thriller with a plausible set up. It also captured the nuances of married life and how people start to look outside of that relationship to have certain needs met psychologically

Lisa Jewell writes deeply engrossing novels with a surprise twist or two. This novel was highly readable, so much so that I skipped chores and read for the entire day!

A compelling and exciting read, I offer 4 1/2 stars to None of This Is True. The author introduces us to Alix Summer and Josie, who happen to be birthday twins despite their vastly different upbringings. Alix's life as a podcaster seems ideal. Alix is captivated by Josie's account, and the two women open up to one another over time. The chapters are brief, and there include excerpts from a Netflix documentary and a podcast, so the book moves quickly. I was quite interested in hearing more about Josie's history. Lisa Jewel's novels almost never let readers down. 

Thank you to #netgalley for this advanced copy for an honest review.

None of This is True
by : Lisa Jewell
⭐️⭐️
genre : thriller / suspense / physiological suspense 

This was definitely an anticipated read. The amount of 5 ⭐️ I saw on booksta was insane!!
It was even @stabbyandsteamybookclub pick for the month of August! However, for me, it fell really flat…

anyway here are some main takeaways : 

🤍 the format. The format of this book as a Netflix / Podcast segment was super cool. I love that there is even a podcast that goes with the book!

🤍 the beginning start off real strong and I thought to myself “I get why everyone loves it!!!” 

👎🏻 Josie. The main character was unlikable since the beginning. She gave me weird vibes from page 1. Stalking is a great way to make friends 😅 She never got likeable and I think that’s why I couldn’t fully trust her at the end (even if Lisa Jewell confirmed it). 

👎🏻 I did not think this had a thriller / suspense vibes as much as it should have been. I knew right away with how Josie talked about Nathan that he would die. Everything seemed too predictable for me. 

👎🏻 Josie’s husband. A legit pedophile. also, had dated her mother as well. Very weird. 

👎🏻 it mentioned Josie’s daughter as having autism but didn’t go into details…with it being a large spectrum, I feel as if having those details in there could help us understand the character more

I really did like the writing and it was a super fast and easy read. Definitely expect more in my thrillers so most likely this is a me problem 🙃🫣

ALSO, a huge shoutout from @netgalley and @atriabooks for the advanced copy 🫶🏻

tropes :
🔪 physiological suspense 
🎙️ podcast element 
👯‍♂️ Multiple POV

If you like thrillers/suspense books, just read it. This was a favorite for the year for me. 

Thank you Net Galley & to the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Lisa Jewell, your mind is a twisted place and I love it! Normally an untrustworthy main character (which Josie's personality screamed from the get go) annoys me, but it worked so well with this book. Plus, the "None of This is True" title really set me up to not believe a word anyone was saying. Most of the twists I could see coming, but one or two I did not and they were good. The different aspects of the live story, the podcast, and the Netflix documentary made for such an intriguing read. I loved putting the pieces together from all of the witnesses. If this doesn't become a Netflix series, they are really dropping the ball on something great. 

As usual, highly recommend Jewell's book! I also recommend going the audiobook route if you enjoy them. It was fantastic!

A very interesting and intriguing thriller. It took me a bit to get through. I had no idea what the twist was going to be and I was definitely very surprised. I still had some questions when I was finished and wanted to know a little more about certain characters. I really liked the ending and definitely made you think and reconsider everything we had known.

Hands-down one of my top picks of 2023. This is absolutely my new favorite Lisa Jewell book and while the plot and the way the story unfolds is strong by itself, the audio version of None of This is True really shines. As an audio book, this is in my top five for best audio book experience I've ever had. The audio quality is so high and it pairs perfectly with the story Jewell tells, making it truly come across as the highest caliber of a true crime podcast breaking a case wide open. I immediately started recommending this book to everyone.

A twisty story brought to life beautifully with multiple perspectives and timelines. Lisa jewell does it again!

This was a book that kept me thinking even when I wasn’t reading. Birthday twins, Josie and Alex find their lives intertwined after meeting during the night if their birthday celebrations. This psychological thriller has dark moments and suspenseful elements; the title is fair warning and help elevates the suspense, keeping myself guessing until the end, which was...okay (this the 4 stars instead of 5)

This might have been better as a book than an audio book, although it kept my attention the entire time. The line between suspenseful and manipulative was not successfully toed. Maybe the title gave some of it away, which wasn’t great either. Or, maybe I just couldn’t get past the way the narrator pronounced “podcast” like ‘paw’cas.” It was similar to I Have Some Questions for You, but not as good.