The Book:
None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell
Published August 8, 2023 by Atria Books
Date read: April 15, 2023
None Of This Is True spoilers can be found below, but they’re hidden under a spoiler tag so you’re safe to keep scrolling if you’d just like to read my review.
The Characters:
Alix
Josie
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The Plot (from Goodreads):
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?
None Of This Is True Spoilers
The Reveal:
Josie tells Alix a bunch of shocking things in the podcast, namely that she began dating Walter when she was 16. She tells her that Walter was a pedophile, and that he had slept with Roxy’s friend Brooke and was now abusing Erin.
Josie arrives at Alix’s house one night bloodied, and tells her that Walter hit her and Erin so they left. She says Erin is staying with a friend. On the day that Alix asks Josie to leave, Nathan goes out for drinks and never comes home.
Alix pieces together that Josie had kidnapped Nathan. The police find Walter’s body in their bathtub and find Erin tied up in a cupboard (tied to the “Naughty Chair”), not dead but in a coma. Roxy comes home and tells Alix that nothing Josie said was true.
Brooke had been Roxy’s girlfriend. Walter was a loving, normal father, and he would game with Erin on the nights he left Josie’s bed. He was part of what made her such a popular streamer. When Erin came out of the coma, she told Alix that she had watched Josie kill Brooke because she was jealous that her family all liked Brooke more than Josie. She also says she saw what happened the night of the dinner party: Josie was berating Walter for embarrassing her, suddenly called him a pedophile, and then began hitting him. Erin rushed out to help her father and started hitting Josie. Josie eventually overpowered her and put her in the closet.
Josie was on the run hiding in a cabin near a lake. The police eventually found where they were staying, but it was too late for Nathan. His body was recovered from the lake, and Josie escaped again. She sent Alix a voice note saying she was just trying to help her and hadn’t meant to kill him. After the podcast was published, Josie sent Alix another letter.
The Ending:
The ending leaves a little ambiguity, as it flashes to Josie’s POV in which she has convinced herself that Roxy killed Brooke, Erin saw, and Josie and Walter had helped cover up the death. Josie is clearly crazy, though, so it’s unclear what is true.
I hope these None Of This Is True spoilers were helpful!
The Review:
This juicy story was the perfect vacation read. I loved it! I was fascinated by the main characters and their bizarre relationship, and I couldn’t wait to find out their secrets. In fact, I couldn’t put it down and flew through it. Expertly written, suspenseful, with fascinating characters that you can’t decide whether to love or hate. No spoilers so I don’t want to say more, but trust me–it’s worth it.
Lisa Jewell is an auto-buy author, and None Of This Is True is no exception to this rule. In fact, if I were to rank her books it would be somewhere near the top.
This is the perfect book to lose yourself in when you need a break from real life this summer. I also think it would make a perfect book club book–there is certainly a lot to discuss! Please comment if you’ve read it and want to talk about that ending 😳
For more podcast thrillers, check out this list.
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