I’ve read some Lisa Jewell before, and I’ve been impressed by her books before. However, none of her books have quite engrossed me like None Of This Is True did. I’m not sure whether it’s because I’m on a big thriller hype at the moment or whether it genuinely was that gripping but I came away from None Of This Is True wanting to physically applaud, it was that enjoyable!
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None Of This Is True tells the story of two women – Josie Fair and Alix Summers. Spending her 45th birthday in a bup, Josie sees Alix is also celebrating her birthday and after establishing they’re “birthday twins” decides that she wants to use the platform of Alix’s incredibly successful podcast to tell her story. At first hesitant, Alix soon realises Josie’s past is pretty wild but the present and future are going to be far too close to home for Alix.
None Of This Is True plot – 4.5/5
The idea of a thriller is that it is supposed to keep you gripped. Unlike other genres that focus on other elements of the writing to keep you reading, thrillers are meant to be all-thrills, fast-paced, suspense-filled shockers that make you want to keep reading at a rate of knots. None Of This Is True grabs you from the first page and doesn’t really let you go until the very last.
Josie, at first, seems like a fairly regular character, however as you find out more and more about her past and her life, you begin to realise she’s not quite what you suspected. I don’t really want to spoil too much of the plot, but it focuses on Josie’s relationship with her husband who we soon realise is over 25 years older than she is. Things slowly start to unravel about their past and I couldn’t help but keep feeling shocked – which is rare for me because I’m usually able to guess everything.
Jewell’s no-holds-bar approach to this novel means that you’ll likely also find yourself shocked often. Whether Jewell intended many of the shocks from the outset or not, they certainly all held together and looking back at the start of the book, they all make sense.
I can’t remember the last time I was so engrossed in a novel such as this one. I listened to it via audiobook and read the physical copy too. I’d highly recommend the audiobook as there’s an intertwining mention of a Netflix series and a podcast and both of these are played out really well. Also – fun fact, there’s an actual four-part podcast you can listen to based on the audio snippets from the audiobook.
None Of This Is True characters – 4.5/5
Usually for the characters to impress me in a book, I need a bit of humour or a character redemption journey – there’s none of that in None Of This Is True and yet I still came out very impressed with the way Jewell had stayed within the lines to create two very defined characters.
Again without spoiling too much, Josie’s slow change in personality is really well-handled and at no point does it feel unbelievable. Alix on the other hand is the exact sort of person you can imagine behind the camera of a successful Instagram account where everything looks all clean and perfect but in reality isn’t quite that.
Almost oxy-morons of one another, Alix and Josie are two perfectly crafted characters for this book – only let down by the fact that I didn’t exactly fall in love with either of them (but then maybe that’s intended).
None Of This Is True final rating – 4.5/5
Reading None Of This Is True felt like when you watch one of those Netflix documentaries where you can’t quite believe there are people out there that would do such a thing. As a thriller, None Of This Is True is one of the best I’ve ever read – it’s Lisa Jewell’s best book to date. It’s full of suspense, full of the constant want to know what’s coming next and had me constantly pulling literal shock emojis whilst I was reading and listening to it. If you can, listen to the audiobook because it’s immense, but either way, this is, for me, at the very peak of the mountain of best thrillers I’ve ever read.
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