Man oh man, I have to say that this might be my favorite Lisa Jewell book!

Alix Summer is the host of a successful podcast. The night of her birthday she is approached by Josie, who happens to have the same birthday her. Alix invites her as a guest on her podcast, but later the podcast is used for a documentary on Netflix called “Hi, I’m your Birthday Twin!”

I loved this book so much! I seriously didn’t know what was going to happen or what twists and turns the book would take. Lately, I’ve found thriller books to be predictable, leaving me unsatisfied. However, this book, especially the last page left me speechless! I did feel that the last 20 pages or so, the book lost its momentum, but that last page… WOW! I highly recommend this one!

Thank you NetGalley and Atria for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lisa Jewell for this digital ARC.

Another hit from Lisa Jewell.. this is such a good book! I read it in one sitting. All of the twist and turns had me in a choke hold! I highly recommend this to anyone that loves true crime/thrillers

WHAT?!?!?!

Brief synopsis: Josie the meek-appearing woman married to a 74 year old man is out for her 45th birthday dinner when she sees Alix, a fun, bright, enthusiastic podcaster ALSO celebrating her 45th. Immediately, she is fixated. Josie starts to resent her husband Walter (who she met when she was 14 and he was 42...), notices that Alix's husband Nathan starts going on regular benders (which...), and somehow maneuvers her way into Alix's life.

This is another example of improbable storylines that somehow sucks you in and never lets go. BUT I did enjoy it immensely (though I wanted to slap Alix back into reality every 5 sentences).

The story switches perspectives between the two women and also adds in "clips" from a Netflix special based on their podcast situation. It made for a fun story and I think this would be a highly entertaining thriller show. Probably won't happen but it is set up in a way that it works.

This book felt highly similar to _Notes on a Scandal_ with Josie as the Judi Dench character and Alix as the Cate Blanchett figure. I also felt uncomfortable the whole time. What if you ask someone their story and find yourself trapped in that web as well?

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Lisa Jewell always delivers! Another great read! This story is great for true crime fans, might be a little predictable but the journey was a fantastic ride!

This is a story that I can genuinely say I lost sleep over. Not in a creep way that kept me up late…but in the way that I had to read “just one more chapter” and found myself finishing the book. This book was storytelling at its finest. This was told in chronological order following Alix and Josie with podcast/interview/Netflix show scenes interspersed throughout. This will be a wonderful book club selection because I have thoughts and I have questions! There are definitely trigger warnings in this book that might deter some. Overall, I enjoyed this wild read and can’t wait to talk to people about this one.

I've read another title from Lisa Jewell that I gave 5 stars - Then She Was Gone. I gave that book five stars, but admittedly can't remember much at all about it now. In her acknowledgments, Jewell mentions that she finished None of This is True at a rapid pace, in six months, and did not include many of the stylistic elements she had prior such as dual timeframe and flashbacks. Perhaps that is the reason this book did not score as high for me, but I can't say for sure.

Most of the characters were extremely flat and underdeveloped. The main character, Alix had two children. I'm still unsure of their ages and couldn't tell you their names; they were simply placeholders in the narrative. Other underdeveloped placeholders that really could have had more character development include Alix's mom, Josie's mom, Josie's daughters, Alix's sisters, and their families. Nathan was the only character I felt any sort of attachment to.

I did enjoy the unique format showing snippets of a Netflix documentary written almost as a screenplay within. That was an intriguing stylistic technique that added interest and created a movie in the mind.

The word "immediately" was used far too much in this novel. Every time I saw the word "immediately," I would immediately roll my eyes and immediately scan the next paragraph to see how immediately I would face the word immediately again which was usually immediately. Jewell is also a fan of ly adverbs, which I am not, to each his own.

Spoilers:
Did we ever find out why Erin only ate baby food? This was a hook for me from the beginning that I never felt I got a satisfactory answer to other than the nurse stating she preferred soft food.

The ending was "Verity" style - who do we believe? That's the twist. I did not attach to any character enough to care. It also bothered me that Alix's husband was missing and she was still carrying on with podcast interviews. It seems a wife with a missing husband with a psycho-killer would be in a frantic state, or at least the readers needed some sort of explanation for why she was not.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoy Lisa Jewel’s writing and her stories. This one is very different, involving podcasts, Netflix, and using them to construct the format for the story. A moderately successful British podcaster of women’s stories meets her “birthday twin” and begins to record her story. It is very different and unexpected. What is true and what is a lie? Who is the abuser? Who is the murderer? Clever and well written.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lisa Jewell for this digital ARC.

Another hit from Lisa Jewell... this buzzy drama had me reading practically non-stop. Podcaster Alix is spending her 45th bday having dinner at the local pub. She meets Josie, also celebrating that day. The "birthday twins" keep bumping into each other, and Alix eventually decides to invite Josie to be on her podcast. But things don't seem to add up about Josie... and Alix is driven further into Josie's cloudy world. Will Alix get to the bottom of Josie's story without someone getting hurt?

4.5/5 stars.

Wow! This story had lots of twists and turns. It kept me at the edge of my seat and it was hard to put down. Popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with Josie Fair, out at a pub when they are both celebrating her 45th birthday. After their brief encounter at the pub, Josie runs into Alix again at her kids school where she has a proposal for Alix. Josie says she's on the cusp of something great and suggests having Alix interview her for her podcast so the listeners can hear where it takes her. As she interviews her she finds that Josie's life is more complicated than she originally thought and she feels compelled to explore where that leads her as she learns more and more about her life and background.

This is another great thriller from Lisa Jewell!! There are compelling characters, and a mystery, where things and people are not what they seem. Loved this book and I definitely recommend it!

My favorite Lisa Jewell to date! I could have read this in one sitting if I had the time. I devoured this in 2 days because I had to know what was going to unfold. I appreciated that this was on the darker side as well. Would definitely recommend!

4.5 STARS - None Of This Is True is a well-named, twisty psychological thriller about two women who randomly meet and find out that they share the same birthday. This tenuous link is followed by a 'chance' encounter and leads to a complex and progressively disturbing connection between Josie and Alix.

The chapters pivot between the two main characters. Josie Fair is a 45-year-old married mother of two young women who is unhappy with her home life and 45-year-old Alix who is a popular podcaster who interviews Josie as part of a series she's doing called "All Women". Although Josie doesn't fit the typical mold for Alix's interviewees, Alix agrees to follow Josie as she attempts to change her life.

Woven into the story were excerpts from a NetFlix documentary series which I found slowed the tension of the main story. What this book does well is the slow burn thriller. I am not normally a fan of slow burn reads, but this book had me hooked. It's a story that will make you uncomfortable with its heavy, emotional topics and how Jewell builds her tension at just the right pace to keep her readers invested. We simply don't know who to trust and Josie, in particular, is unreliable and increasingly unstable and I wanted to figure out what was going on. The only wee disappointment was that the ending, while shocking, felt too abrupt and less satisfying than I was expecting after all the build up.

Dark, intense and filled with lies, manipulation and deception, I enjoyed this slow burn suspense read in all its dysfunctional domestic glory. The last couple of Jewell's books were good but this book puts Jewell back at the top of her game with a thrilling, creeptastically awesome suspense story.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Atria Books for my advanced copy which was provided in exchange for my honest review.

Lisa Jewell has been very hit or miss for me in the past (which isn't entirely fair — more like hit or OK, she rarely misses completely.) But this was a total hit. So many layers and no one was a trustworthy character. Felt more like a drama than a thriller until the end. I finished and was still left with like.. wait.... what?!

This was my first Lisa Jewell, and I had a great time! I don’t often venture into thriller territory, but when I do, I want to be swept away into a heart-pounding, page-turning story.

This book didn’t have that *wow* factor for me personally, but I still enjoyed the creepy, spine-tingling moments of suspense. I saw another review that said lovers of Verity by Colleen Hoover might enjoy this book, and I would agree!

The format of this book is quite interesting and propulsive as well—I loved the incorporation of the podcast and Netflix documentary segments that gave it a unique, true-crime feel.

Thanks to @netgalley and @atriabooks for the eARC in exchange for an honest review

While out to dinner celebrating her 45th birthday, Alex meets Josie in the bathroom. Josie introduces herself by saying “I’m your birthday twin!” Several days later, the two cross paths again and Josie pitches her story for Alix’s podcast. Josie’s life seems to be a bit of a mess, with her husband 20+ years older than her and her two daughters she doesn’t often mention, but as she continues to push her way further into Alix’s life some things just don’t add up.

This book was freaking crazy. Josie’s story of her childhood, her relationship, all of it was just so crazy! I mean she married a 42 year old at 16. I thought the way this book was outlined was so well done and it really kept me invested in the story. I loved the Netflix story mixed in with the podcast episodes and the stories from others in Josie’s life. I had a feeling about some of what was going on with Josie, but I didn’t catch on to all of it. This is Lisa Jewell at her finest and I enjoyed it so much!

This may be my favorite Lisa Jewell novel, and I’m a huge fan, so this says a lot. The characters are well developed, interesting, and real. The antagonist is so perfectly creepy and awful…but you can see how a scenario like this would play out. There was one death that made my heart ache quite a bit, and it will stay with me. The novel’s ending also absolutely leaves it open for a sequel, which I assume is in the works. I look forward to reading it, and I can’t wait to hand sell this one. I think Lisa Jewell lovers will find it perfect, and I know it will help her gather even more fans.

I have been a fan of Lisa Jewell’s since I stayed up way too late finishing Then She Was Gone. I was excited to receive an arc of her latest, None of This is True. It is a true psychological thriller about the stories we tell ourselves about our lives and how we can never really know another person’s story or truth. We know from the beginning things go wrong when Alix, a podcaster, agrees to make Josie Fair the subject of her next podcast. Just how wrong things go will keep you hooked and reading until the end.

This one is full of suspense from start to finish. Just when you think you know which direction things are headed, Jewell manages to upend your thinking and take the story in another direction. I thought the podcast backdrop was well done, and I learned a bit more about the podcasting process. The characters are all well developed, and I was totally invested in getting to the bottom of the story. Although the ending was a bit messy and I have some mixed feelings about it, it really does align with the rest of the book.

Alix Summers and Josie Fair have a chance encounter on their 45th birthday. Alix has been creating podcasts for the past few years, and Josie wants to share her story of trauma. What unfolds turns into a modern day nightmare.

THIS. BOOK 👏👏👏 wow Lisa Jewell you have done it again. This story captivated me from the first page and I wanted to read it every chance I got. I loved the podcast interviews interwoven into the storyline, the dual POV of Alix and Josie, and the unreliable-ness of both women. There were twists and turns, and I couldn’t put it down. This will be the go to thriller of the summer for sure!

New Release Alert for those who love unreliable narrators, true crime, and extremely messy characters! None of This is True is out on 8/8/23 and you don’t want to miss this one!

Some might call this a book review, others might call it an open love letter to @lisajewelluk …I mean really just take your pick.

This BOOK 🤯 The hype is so real. I was hooked from the first page and could not put it down. Lisa Jewell’s writing is always so engaging and whereas a lot of thriller authors go for wild twists, I feel like Jewell does a great job at just constantly leaving you guessing, nervous, or in shock.

There is SO much mystery in this novel that slowly unravels one thread at a time. I could not stop reading because I NEEDED answers.

The format of this novel is really fun and different too. We’re following a current day timeline in which we’re also getting podcast recording sessions, but here and there we are also getting descriptions of a Netflix series that ultimately gets made on the podcast we are watching get recorded. It sounds a little confusing and convoluted and I feel like it could have been, but Jewell really did it in a way that was so impactful.

I cannot recommend this book enough! Big thank you to @netgalley and @atriabooks @atriathrillers for the advanced copy of this book on exchange for my honest review. This one was so fun!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#LisaJewell #NoneOfThisIsTrue #Netgalley #FiveStarRead

Lisa Jewel has a way of writing novels in third person that makes it feel like you are right there with that person. None of This Is True by Lisa Jewel had me on the edge of my seat until the very last moment where I was pushed out of my seat. I was captivated and uncomfortable, all at the same time! loved the Netflix documentary/podcast element that was leading the novel/story!

The podcast/documentary follows the story of Josie Fair (a housewife/seamstress) and is told by Alix Summers (a podcast host). The two meet for the first time on their shared 45th birthday. Josie asks Alix to do a podcast about her life and as Josie and Alix record, Alix learns Josie’s truths about her childhood, her marriage, and her children that are unsettling.

This book feels like it was written for the true crime podcast girlies, so if that’s your thing, this will be your book!!