Thank you NetGalley and Ms Jewell for giving me the opportunity to review None of This is True. I have read several Thrillers and often they seem to follow a particular pattern, but this book is unique in its plot. It is a real page turner and keeps the reader hook throughout the story. I felt like it could have been shortened more but that would not stop me from recommending this book to fans of thrillers.

Lisa Jewell has done it again.

A thrilling-Page turner story that will leave you breathless. The MC characters Josie and and Ali’s are both incredibly addicting on their own way, Josie’s character had me intrigued through the entire story and it had to be my favorite just bc she was such a hot mess! LOL

Alix gave the story a sense of balance and bc it’s the complete opposite from Josie which gave the story a nice balance and made it impossible to put down.

This was a heavy one with so much going on and feelings to unpack and let’s don’t talk about the ending 💀👀

I absolutely Loved it! I can’t wait to see what’s next for Lisa Jewell!

Thank you atria books and Netgalley for a copy of this novel in exchange of an honest review.

As the title implies, this one is a bit of a m!ndfuck.

Josie and Alix are birthday twins, born in the same hospital on the same day - yet the similarities end there.

Jewell develops an interesting concept of a Podcaster championing for women who creates a new Netflix series.... during which things go awry.

Told in third person, the reader is lulled into falsely trusting that everything is exactly as it seems, when really None of This is True....

If you loved Verity, you should read this.

I am giving this book 4/5 stars.

At the beginning it is a little bit slow, despite the fact that you can tell there is something going on that you will want to know about.

But once you start to learn more, you won't want to put it down until you have answers.

None of This is True kept me guessing until the very end. My opinions and feelings about characters changed more times than I can count. It was incredibly enjoyable to read.

I am still trying to decide what I think, which is one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much.

This was definitely a page-turner. And the last two paragraphs really made me question everything! Jewell did a great job of making me root for characters even though I wasn’t sure if I particularly liked them.

Wow! What did I just read?

None of This is True by Lisa Jewell takes the psychological thriller sub-genre to a whole new level, putting this novel on my top 5 for 2023 and possibly even #1. The title says it all, so you can imagine the crazy, jaw-dropping journey the story takes you on - one where you primarily hear Josie’s truth but then find out other people’s truth until you’re not sure which way is up anymore.

I did a read/listen, and I’m going to say something I never imagined myself saying - and those of you who have followed my reviews for years will know what a monumental statement what I’m about to say is. You MUST listen to the audiobook version - even if you do a read/listen like I did. It just adds so much more to the novel, especially with the podcast and Netflix documentary scenes interspersed with the 1st person narration by Alix, the podcaster (mostly), and Josie. The narrators, and there is a whole cast of them, are the perfect choices. I could easily believe that they were the characters, and they acted the story out beautifully.

The characters are developed brilliantly, with subtle layer after subtle layer revealing itself at just the right moment, along with the breadcrumb trail of hints that lead the reader through the story at a rapid pace. I just loved everything about this story! Did I come away knowing what the truth is? I think so, but I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t admit that I still have plenty of doubt about that.

Wow, this book was amazing. Creative, chilling and dark. I was hooked from the start and could not put it down. I was captivated through the entire book. The characters were amazing - I did not trust them or believe them… yet at the same time I was invested in their lives. The story is so creepy it will keep you up at night.

On Alix’s 45th birthday she meets Josie, her birthday twin. Josie finds her way onto alix’s podcast, sharing her life and secrets. Alix finds that not only is Josie a part of her podcast, but now her life. When Josie disappears, alix finds that her life and her families lives are now in danger - and that she has become the subject of her own true crime podcast.

Thank you NetGalley for my advanced reader copy.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of None of This Is True.

I literally do not know where to start. I flew through this book. It may be Lisa Jewell's best novel yet! Twisty, turney, and very captivating.

I would highly recommend this to EVERYONE. 5 STARS!

This is a must read! I was hooked from page one and highly recommend this to all thriller readers

I loved the writing for at that included the podcast and Netflix text

I… i dont.. what?? This was a solid 4-5 star until the end, where one character all of a sudden was just forgiven of their blatant crime, and another was victim blamed to shit, and … I can’t really extrapolate all my thoughts without getting into spoilers. I was pleasantly surprised to not see this go down the Single White Female trope road, but where it ended up was just… not good, sadly.

📖My Thoughts📖

I’m at a loss for words right now, but in a good way. I can’t even begin to think of the words to describe my feelings towards this absolute mind mangle of a story (I bet you thought I was going to swear 😂). I’ve always liked Lisa Jewell’s work, so when my request was granted to review her newest book, I was more than elated! Like the others I’ve read by her, this did not disappoint. Oh no. It had me hook, line and sinker right off the bat! I love how she can keep you on the edge of your seat and just wanting more, wanting to read so much faster than you possibly can because it’s just that intense. The downfall is when you actually have to be a responsible adult and stop reading. It’s pure torture! Even at the very end I found myself thinking ok, it’s all figured out etc, only to have those few last turns in there leaving you sitting thinking, “wait, what?”. I love it! I absoflippinlutely love it! Lisa Jewell, you definitely know the way to a thriller lovers heart. If you crave a good thriller, you definitely need to check this one out!
Thank you Netgalley, Lisa Jewell and Atria Books for the opportunity to read and review this book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

A dark and twisty thriller where the making of a podcast leads to the podcaster herself starring in her own nightmarish true crime story.

Wow! I LOVED this one and the audio was absolutely amazing with multiple narrators and fun extras like podcast excerpts. Highly recommend this one on audio!

This starts off slow with two women meeting at a restaurant and discovering they are birthday twins - born on the same day, in the same hospital. Alix Summers is a famous podcaster with a seemingly perfect life. Josie Fair is an unhappy woman who wants to make changes in her life. When they “coincidentally” bump into each other Josie convinces Alix to make her the star of her next podcast.

As they record the podcast, each episode dredges up more and more pieces of Josie’s traumatic life. Let me tell you, the red flags were flying all over the place! This woman was creepy and I was willing Alix to walk away, podcast be damned. But, it’s not easy to walk away from Josie. I couldn’t tear myself away either!

Absolutely the loved the twist and turns and darkness in this one. And that ENDING! WOW! None of This is True has officially taken my top spot of all Lisa Jewell’s books.

**Many thanks to NetGalley, Atria, and Lisa Jewell for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!**

Imagine you're at a birthday dinner with anyone close to you...a friend, a significant other, a few family members. And though you're thrilled to be there and order something special, there's a TINY part of you that is dreading the possibility that at any moment, a server (or a cadre of servers) are going to come your way carrying a cake and singing the obligatory Happy Birthday song (or the restaurant approved version, anyway.)

And what if THAT dread was only the beginning?

While podcaster Alix Summers is out with her husband to celebrate her 45th, after the big song, a woman named Josie approaches the table and informs her that she is her TRUE birthday twin---down to the year. Though Alix finds this surprising, the two go about their separate celebrations and she figures that will be the end of it. UNTIL Josie happens to run into Alix yet again - this time, outside of her children's school - and Josie has become completely enamored with Alix's podcast. In fact, she thinks she has the perfect candidate for Alix's next episode- Josie Fair herself.

All Josie tells Alix initially is that she's looking for a change and a fresh start in her life...but nothing can prepare Alix for the details to come. Josie reveals shocking secret after shocking secret about her dangerous past and even MORE dangerous present -- stories of grooming and abuse that haven't quite ended yet. Josie's predicament terrifies Alix...but at the same time, this mysterious and quirky woman slowly worms her way further into Alix's life...and her home. Although she wants to help her, Alix fears that this case may be far more involved than any she's explored in her podcast thus far. Will Josie's desperation to escape her situation lead her to say just about ANYTHING to get out, once and for all? And just how much of this 'true crime' tale is, well, TRUE?

Lisa Jewell has been around the scene for a while now: this is her ELEVENTH thriller after making the transition from romance novels. Even Jewell herself has said her thrillers follow a general trend: now and then timelines, unlikable characters, at LEAST one teenage POV...and there's often a big 'didn't know they were related' reveal. This formula has suited her well, and I've never doubted her ability to write a compelling narrative. Whether I agreed with the way it played out or not, despite occasional uneven pacing, I'm a Jewell fan through and through and also feel like I have a good sense of what to expect when I grab one of her books.

Well. To say this one threw ALL of my preconceived notions out of the window COULD be the understatement of the YEAR!

This is a darker Jewell...a more DISTURBED Jewell...and in some ways it was everything I could have asked for in her evolution as an author. That being said, there were a few aspects of this plot that kept it from being a 5 star read for me and more than a few times I wished I could slowly back away from the characters in this book....and faster than Usain, BOLT!

First off, I am the last person to be excited by the premise of a true crime podcast/documentary/Netflix show etc. But WOWZA. If Jewell wanted to shelve novel writing and jump into screenwriting TOMORROW, I think she could do it. The Netflix show ABOUT the podcast is cleverly and neatly interspersed into the narrative, and I kid you not, every time one of these sections popped up, I could almost SEE the drama unfolding before me. Rather than a plot device, it felt like an evocative and intriguing way to leave a tiny trail of breadcrumbs throughout the story to keep you dying for more detail, more insight, and that next provocative interview. Needless to say, if this were a real Netflix documentary...UTTERLY bingeable.

These characters though...they might have been her most unlikable group to date. Even protagonist Alix has her blinders on selectively throughout and doesn't exactly do her due diligence with, well, anything. Josie is obviously a woman of mystery, but as a reader, I had a hard time buying her stories and suspected that a LOT was wrong with this situation (beyond the obvious). Nevertheless, I was excited to get to the bottom of things and had a hard time stopping myself from extrapolating endlessly as the novel wore on, with theory after theory about all of the players involved.

But then it's revealed, amidst a sea of lies, that one story was TRUE: a character involved in grooming a young woman really DID groom said teenager. And where this should have left another character horrified, it was basically brushed aside entirely because the same character is painted to be a "good guy" for other reasons. Not only is this not the first time Jewell has done this sort of thing, but it took what was SUCH a disturbing and powerful narrative to a sort of icky place. In a book that turns out to not be AS full of bad people as you may initially believe...there was no need for this turnaround. The character in question didn't really DESERVE any sort of redemptive mention or a 'pass' for the disgusting behavior....EVEN if someone else turns out to be worse, and I just wish that Jewell hadn't soured such a strong and impactful story with this choice.

At the end of a particularly sinister and AMAZING horror movie, I always have that moment where I'm GRATEFUL to leave the theater, blink in the sunlight, and feel part of the less ominous real world. This book took me to that same sort of deep, scary place...and while I did manage to enjoy most of the ride?

I have NEVER been more relieved to pick up my sunglasses and bask in the warm comforting glow of the summer sun!

4 stars

I received an arc copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for my honest opinion of it. This book was just okay for me and I almost gave up several times until it finally picked up at 70 percent. I really did care for the podcast information thrown in here and there. I sure didn't care for how many times the "f" bomb was used. Way too much.

Wow! This is a five star thriller. I’m still thinking about it and working out what the hell happened! Bone-chilling, hair-pin turns, and rapt page-turning at all times of the day. Thank you to Net Galley, Atria Books, and Lisa Jewell for the ARC!

None of This is True by Lisa Jewel started off extremely captivating to me. However, once I learned of the younger teenager married to the 40 something year old man, I struggled very hard to stay connected to this story. I couldn’t quite understand things, the reasoning, the lack of protection, etc. so I just lost my interest & felt a bit sick to my stomach. I usually like a complex story with an unreliable narrator, but this wasn’t for me. I also did like the concept of the Netflix sections & clips, but sometimes it would stop the flow of the story.

Thanks to NetGalley & Simon & Schuster for the gifted arc, which I voluntarily read & reviewed.


Content Warnings: This book mentions &/or contains violence, abuse, murder, addiction & child abuse.

Because of my lower rating, I do not plan on posting it anywhere else. I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to read an arc & I do not want to hurt anyone just because this wasn’t the book for me.

The best work so far from the best in the business. The twists kept coming. I can’t wait to re-read and catch things I missed!

This wasn’t a bad read but it wasn’t great. The story felt muddled at times and I’m still not 100% sure what to believe from the characters. Their lives were a total mess. It felt like the ending could have been handled better.

I was so into this book at first. The characters were so compelling and I loved that part of the story was told through a true crime documentary with reenactments and interviews that all weave the story. I found the climax and resolution to be a let down though as it all felt very predictable.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5740649098

Best book by Lisa Jewell so far. Twist and suspense throughout the book had me unable to put it down. Every time I thought I knew what was happening I was wrong.

Best book by Lisa Jewell so far. Twist and suspense throughout the book had me unable to put it down. Every time I thought I knew what was happening I was wrong.

Best book by Lisa Jewell so far. Twist and suspense throughout the book had me unable to put it down. Every time I thought I knew what was happening I was wrong.

Best book by Lisa Jewell so far. Twist and suspense throughout the book had me unable to put it down. Every time I thought I knew what was happening I was wrong.

Best book by Lisa Jewell so far. Twist and suspense throughout the book had me unable to put it down. Every time I thought I knew what was happening I was wrong.

Best book by Lisa Jewell so far. Twist and suspense throughout the book had me unable to put it down. Every time I thought I knew what was happening I was wrong.