REVIEW: None of This is True

By Denise @ Life With No Plot on January 5, 2026 • ( 0 )

About the Book

Title: None of This is True

Author: Lisa Jewell

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 390

Edition Read: Hardcover

Dates Read: September 2 – 4, 2025

Blurb: Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.

A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?

Review

This was a very interesting read. I got it through a book swap with a book club that I’m in and knew nothing about it. I had heard of Lisa Jewell before, but had never read any of her work. After reading this, I want to look into more of her books because I really enjoyed it.

One thing that I always enjoy as a reader is an unreliable narrator. The blurb makes it sound like Alix is the main character, and she’s definitely one of them, but this is Josie’s story. But what is Josie’s story? It seems like she doesn’t even know. Her story shifts and changes with every conversation, even when she’s the point-of-view character. I think she would be considered the story’s antagonist (that shouldn’t be a spoiler, I don’t think, given the blurb), but hearing the story inside her head made me second guess not only everything she said and did, but the other characters as well.

This story was full of twists and turns. Was Josie the villain or a victim? Can the answer be both? She’s very manipulative, but also incredibly vulnerable. Alix is both sympathetic to her and repulsed by her at the same time, which is a good foil for how the reader feels whenever Josie is telling her story. As more and more details get revealed, the picture gets clearer in some ways and murkier in others. It made for a gripping tale that I couldn’t put down because I just needed to find out WHAT WAS GOING ON!

Since I’ve been dipping my toes into other genres, this was one of the many new mystery/thriller books I tried out last year and absolutely loved it.

GoodReads rating: 5 stars