None of This is True: The new addictive psychological thriller from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Family Upstairs

Product Information

Perhaps if we’d had some POV from Josie after the shit hit the fan that would have cleared up her state of mind. She glances at Walter, at the fading glory of him, and she wonders how different things would be if she hadn’t met him. Alix is a successful journalist, and Josie convinces Alix that her story is worth telling: Josie met her husband when she was 13 and he was 40.

Choose a true crime podcast to listen to and compare and contrast the narration approach with Alix’s podcast. At the end of a particularly sinister and AMAZING horror movie, I always have that moment where I'm GRATEFUL to leave the theater, blink in the sunlight, and feel part of the less ominous real world.While reading the book, I felt like the emoji that has both hands over their eyes but with their fingers spread so that the upcoming train wreck is slightly visible. I had a sense of panic from the beginning when the "birthday twins" Alix and Josie unexpectantly meet. I’m speechless after reading this bone chilling, dark, twisty, mind bending thriller which is one of the best works of Lisa Jewel.

Alix herself has a pretty good life too - a smart ultra modern home in London, two beautiful children, a husband that she loves - you get the picture, life’s pretty good in the main, although her husband Nathan does have a tendency to go on benders from time to time, which Alix finds worrying. A storyline which makes this difficult to endure in some parts, but they are real life issues so of course we should cover them. She has the air of a person who would believe a lie if she repeated it often enough, while her relationship with Walter is deeply problematic.Then Zoe and Alix turn the conversation away from the Huge Coincidence and immediately Josie sees that it has passed, this strange moment of connection, that it was fleeting and weightless for Alix, but that for some reason it carries import and meaning to Josie, and she wants to grab hold of it and breathe life back into it, but she can’t.

I believe the ending was designed to give the reader some authority over how they perceived not only the entire story, but also what happens after the final page is turned, although I would have been more satisfied with full closure. Sure, that particular character did meet their fate in this book, however, why did they get a redemption arc/sympathy. So when she “accidentally” bumps into her “birthday twin” again, a few days later, and Josie suggests that she might be an interesting subject, because Alix can follow her AS she changes her life instead of after someone has ALREADY done so, Alix decides to record a “test session” to see how it goes. I think the biggest problem is that the title and the structure of the narrative kind of give away the fun?Lisa Jewell is on top-form with this pitch-black fever dream of a book - darker, twistier and more compelling than ever. With the story unfinished, the narrative unfolds in the present tense, with prose that jingles like song lyrics: “He turns to see if the girl is behind him, and sees her wishy-washy, wavy-wavy, in double vision through the glass windows of the hotel.

Imagine if Lisa Jewell had chosen a different narrative structure from this novel and only told it from one point of view.The reason I am not giving None of This Is True five stars, which I thought I would for 95% of the book, is that I feel conflicted about the ending. In fact, the build up of 85% of the novel is such a beautiful master class on slow burning suspense, and how to do it so that you don’t lose the reader in the process, that I was sure this would be Jewell’s darkest novel yet. Peeling apart the layers of her backstory, discovering her childhood, her role as a mother, and the lies she has told, was pure heart-pounding fun! But slowly Alix 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. While podcaster Alix Summers is out with her husband to celebrate her 45th, after the big song, a woman named Josie approaches the table and informs her that she is her TRUE birthday twin---down to the year.