Everyone Lies to You by Jo Piazza is an exceptional storytelling novel that features unexpected twists. It’s a timely and propulsive suspense novel that offers a unique perspective on social media influencers, particularly conservative traditional wives who present idealized versions of their lives. Unfortunately, no one’s life is perfect, and it’s disheartening to gain followers and lucrative sponsors for such a facade. Every woman should read this fast-paced and brilliant mystery! I highly recommend it!

Lizzie and Bex were best friends until Bex disappeared after college graduation. Now, fifteen years later, Bex has transformed into a “traditional” wife and influencer with millions of followers, a ranch, a husband named Gray, and a brood of children. When Bex calls Lizzie to invite her to do an exclusive interview, it may be the big break her career needs.

Curious about not just the exclusive, but also why Bex abruptly ended their friendship, Lizzie heads to the MomBomb conference to reconnect with her. But when Gray is found murdered and Bex goes missing, Lizzie finds herself in a world of momfluencers and backstabbing.

Trigger Warnings
Infertility

Why Kirsten loves it
A #tradwife murder mystery from the amazing Jo Piazza? Yes, please!!! Jo is a genre-shape shifter who can effortlessly amp up the suspense factor while pulling back the curtain of influencing. I’m not sure what impressed me more, that BANANAS ending or the social commentary on Tradwives and the lies we are all sold by the influencers of the world.

This is the chocolate-covered bonbon of a book that only Jo could write. I guarantee you will be on the edge of your seat as you reevaluate all you know about influencers.

This book is such a fun romp through influencer culture! The plot draws you in immediately, the shifting narratives keep you engaged, and the sumptuous setting of a fancy hotel in the desert is enticing. It's not literary by any means but the writing is decent and very timely as the tradwife movement is under scrutiny. It will certainly appeal to anyone who has ever scrolled Instagram and wondered if those perfect lives of those perfect women and their perfect children in their perfect homes are actually real. Recommended for a light and highly entertaining read.
I was given an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Everyone in indeed lying to you in this darkly entertaining page turner of a thriller. Based in the mommy-blog/tradwife social media world, we quickly learn that things are not always as they appear online. From hidden abuse to "shadow kitchens" there is much more than meets the eye in the carefully curated world of content creators, and when one of the husbands winds up dead it's up to reporter Lizzie to clear the name of her college roommate, party-girl-turned influencer Bex (Rebecca now) who she hasn't seen or spoken to in 15 years. This quick read kept met enthralled until the very end. Recommended for anyone who loves a thriller that peels back the curtain on perfection.

If you have even a cursory interest in Ballerina Farms then this is a must read book. I loveeddd the intimate account of what goes on behind the scenes of an influencers life. The trad wife phonemenon is endlessly fascinating and this book does a great job of capturing the POV of a trad wife influencer account.

Yes! THIS is the kind of book I crave! One of the best I’ve read this year… A thought-provoking, unpredictable gem I couldn’t put down, it had me from the first page! It touches on many different topics that all mesh together to become a TradWife thriller.

3.75 stars
I’m loving this trad wife trope. This was fun and an interesting commentary on the influencer lifestyle.
They murder mystery kind of played second fiddle but was still interesting. Worth the read.

Super interesting social commentary on influencers and influencing. The murder mystery was more of a (kind of blah) vehicle to speak to more important themes.

Two college best friends, Lizzie and Bex, have drifted apart—Bex mysteriously disappeared years ago. Now, Bex is Rebecca Sommers: a homeschooling, ranch‑living “trad‑wife” influencer with five kids and a massive online following. She unexpectedly invites Lizzie to a high‑profile influencer conference, but when they arrive, Rebecca vanishes and her husband is found murdered. Thrust back into an old friendship—and a web of influencer drama—Lizzie must untangle secrets, deception, and competition in the glossy but cutthroat world of social media. I found this to be a fun, binge‑worthy thriller that kept me hooked from the first chapter to the last. Piazza’s fast pacing, pop‑culture references, and voicey narrators made it impossible to put down. It definitely made me question some of my favorite influencers—and appreciate how much of what we see is constructed.

I absolutely loved this one! I’m a big fan of Jo and she introduced me to the concept of Trad wives years ago so I feel like I’ve been on this ride with her. This is filled with suspense, drama and it’s the perfect summer thriller.

Meet Lizzie and Bex.

Well, you might see into some aspects of their lives. But there's a lot going on in this story. And even by the end, there's mystery left.

This will definitely be a perfect pick for book clubs - and something to talk about at the coffee shop or bakery.

Everyone is probably lying, and red herrings abound. Everything is not what it seems.

"There's a right way to be authentic and a right way to be authentic. I'm almost always performing, and I've gotten very good at it."

Bex and Lizzie were inseparable until an incident in San Francisco left Lizzie with questions and Bex with a secret that would divide them for fifteen years. Now, Rebecca is a social media sensation who needs an investigative journalist and friend, thus reconnecting with Lizzie. Without any explanation, Rebecca invites Lizzie to a conference for influencers, MomBomb, at an exclusive resort. Lizzie wants answers from Bex, but she knows to tread lightly. After spending the evening together, Lizzie learns that Rebecca has disappeared, right before her big reveal at MomBomb. Now, it is up to Lizzie to save her job (by writing about MomBomb and Rebecca's disappearance) and save her friend. But can Lizzie figure out the clues left behind by Bex in time, or is the secret that separated the women fifteen years ago too much to overcome?

I was sceptical of Everyone is Lying to You because of the "influencer" aspect of it. I am not on social media, and I don't understand the appeal of it, but Piazza took this social phenomenon and peeled back the layers in such a way to truly question why people are so fascinated by influencers and the everyday. She layers this with the mystery of Bex and Lizzie's friendship and Bex's disappearance to reveal pieces of a whole community and belief system that limits the freedoms of females, but she does this in such a way that readers can understand the struggles and decisions without judgment. I greatly enjoyed Everyone is Lying to You and look forward to reading more from Jo Piazza.

Totally captivating, I did not want to put it down. Always wondering 'whodunit" I will recommend to all my friends!

I am not a huge thriller fan but I loved this! It was hard to put down. I loved the “behind the scenes” aspect of influencers and particularly trad wives. The pace was fast and while I predicted a few small things it was mostly a surprise at the end.

This was a fun thriller set in the world of trad wives (brilliant premise). Likely to be very popular!

Everyone Is Lying to You is a fun and smart mystery that takes on the Trad Wife trend that has consumed social media. It follows two college friends who became estranged in their early twenties and are now married mothers in their late thirties. Lizzie is a writer, struggling to stay afloat as a working writer and mother to young kids. Rebecca, formerly Bex, is a #TradWife influencer with a gaggle of kids and a seemingly perfect life as a homesteading mother.

Rebecca invites Lizzie to a Momfluencer conference in Utah to give her a scoop on a big story. During the first night, Rebecca’s husband is gruesomely murdered and Rebecca and her children have disappeared. Lizzie is left at the conference to cover an even bigger story than she anticipated, but with no idea what is going on and who to trust.

Mysteries about influencers are super popular now, but I found this to be a sharply written deep-dive. I really enjoyed the feminist social commentary. So many Trad Wives appear to be women who adhere to and promote traditional values and submitting to their husbands. Meanwhile, they are the CEO of their family and a lucrative business as an influencer. Not to mention, the idyllic life they’re promoting isn’t really the one they’re actually living. Sometimes the perfect image can hide some pretty dark truths.

The dual perspective of Lizzie and Rebecca of the novel kept me riveted. Even when we got answers, it made me think of more questions. Overall, a fascinating and propulsive mystery.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

I liked this one. There were twists and turns but not too crazy. I would have been up for a bigger jump scare/reveal. The characters and plot were interesting and kept me interested.

I absolutely loved this book about a down-on-her-luck journalist reconnecting with her college best friend, who’s now a crunchy #barefootmama influencer, after a rupture. Lizzie gets a message from Bex about breaking a big story. Bex invites her to an Amangiri-coded resort in rural Utah (thinking of Our Last Resort here!), close to her homestead, where there’s a #girlboss mom influencer convention happening. The women reconnect but don’t rehash what previously went wrong (Bex ghosted Lizzie). Then, just before giving Lizzie the scoop, Bex disappears and her husband is found dead. It’s a hell of a pitch, told mostly through Lizzie’s POV but occasionally going into Bex’s as well.

What I adored about this read was how the author makes us care for Bex, who is, at face value, ridiculous. She’s built an entire Instagram empire, but there are obviously cracks below the surface, mostly to do with Bex’s idyllic-seeming marriage. There’s also the high-stakes question of friendship and loyalty. Does Lizzie really know Bex anymore? Is her old friend capable of murder? The stakes worked really well here. Lizzie’s career has been flagging, but does she care about being a reporter suddenly thrust into a high-profile murder? Or is she more interested in reclaiming the woman she used to be and has since lost to adulthood and motherhood—the version of Lizzie that Bex knows best? Through a series of reveals, the women are brought back together to investigate the murder, and other nefarious influencers become involved behind the scenes. It feels like a very timely takedown of #momtok culture (for all of our Secret Lives of Mormon Wives fans) and plays with obvious themes of appearance vs. reality, but in a way that’s strung across a fast-paced plot.

Summary:

A smart yet mainstream read, I’m afraid this one isn’t entirely served by its cover or title, which ring a bit generic. Read it for the layered, complicated nature of the friendship between the women. Notice how the curiosity hook of what went wrong between them carries us into the present turmoil, which grows bigger than either protagonist imagined. It’s a great launch pad that creates some initial mystery.

This was fun. I enjoyed most everything about the story and may even have given it a 5 if there was a bit more to the end. I appreciated the multiple prologues which alost made up for that. It was a good story that kept my interest and had a good amount of intrigue. Never read this author but will go back and maybe even to the podcast.

I loved this propulsive thriller by journalist and writer Jo Piazza, whose list of accomplishments echoes the women she is parodying in this novel about social media influencers gone wild. Wild only in popularity and behind closed doors, as these women are selling the ideals of a traditional life on the land while raking in the bucks selling bespoke aprons and 4 figure strollers to their legions of followers. Journalist Lizzie is excited but cautious when her old college bestie Bex messages her out of the blue. Bex is now Rebecca, a homesteading, homeschooling influencer who wears prairie dresses while perfectly managing six children and a happy ranch home life with her handsome husband. But the picture-perfect life is never what it seems and Bex is ready for a change, and she wants Lizzie to have the exclusive on her new big deal. Read this if you like a satisfying ending and heroines who are not picture perfect. A very quick and fun work!