Review: None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell (spoiler free)

None of This Is True kept me constantly questioning what was real, and I tore through it in just a few days because I needed answers.

Title: None of This Is True
Author: Lisa Jewell
Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Fiction
Publication Date: August 8, 2023
Review Date: August 10, 2026
Number of Pages: 390 (hardcover)
My Rating: 4.5/5

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Book Blurb of None of This is True:

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?

Book Review of None of This Is True:

None of This Is True was my first Lisa Jewell novel, and it definitely won’t be my last!

This is one of those psychological thrillers that somehow feels like a slow burn and a page-turner at the same time. The story takes its time revealing what’s really going on (happily confusing you quite a bit in the process), but I still ended up flying through it in just 2–3 days because I needed to know how everything would unfold.

What stood out to me most was how often the story shifted my perspective. Just when I thought I had some idea of what was happening in the story, there came a new piece of information or another point of view that made me question things again. For a huge portion of the book, you never really know what’s true or how much of it is true and that constant uncertainty makes it incredibly compelling. No spoilers, but even the ending continues that pattern by leaving you with more to think about rather than neatly tying everything together.

That balance between slow reveal and compulsive reading is something Lisa Jewell handles really well here. The book doesn’t rush its reveals, but it also never loses momentum. That sense of not knowing what to believe is exactly what made this such an unputdownable read for me.

The characters themselves were more interesting than likable, which worked well for this type of psychological thriller. My opinion of them changed multiple times as the story unfolded, and watching those shifts happen was a big part of what kept me invested.

There were definitely a few moments where I found myself rolling my eyes at some of the characters’ choices because they felt like obviously bad decisions. However, that is often the case with psychological thrillers. Perfectly rational people rarely make for compelling leads in this genre. It tends to rely on flawed, messy, sometimes unreliable people to drive the story forward.

Either way, it’s less that those moments were poorly written and more that they occasionally pulled me out of the story. If those same twists and reveals had happened while the characters were making choices that felt just a little more believable, this would’ve been an easy 5-star read for me.

Overall, None of This Is True was a really engaging and addictive psychological thriller. The constant sense of uncertainty and the way the story kept re-contextualizing itself made for a great reading experience. It didn’t quite reach a perfect 5 stars for me because a handful of character decisions stretched my suspension of disbelief, but that’s a very small criticism in an otherwise excellent read. I finished this book in just a few days and immediately found myself wanting to read more from Lisa Jewell, which is always a good sign.

Who do I recommend None of This Is True for?

If you’re looking for a psychological thriller that keeps you hooked with changing reframes of the narrative, this is a great example of how effective tension and uncertainty can do all the heavy lifting.