Title: NONE OF THIS IS TRUE
Author: Lisa Jewell
Read: September 2023
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Book Description:
Lisa Jewell returns with a
scintillating new psychological thriller about a woman who finds herself the
subject of her own popular true crime podcast.
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.
My musings:
Have you ever met one of your birthday twins, a
person born on exactly the same day as you? I remember being at work one day,
taking a woman’s details, and it turned out we were born merely an hour apart,
albeit in different parts of the globe. A strange bond, nonetheless.
Josie Fair is having her 45th
birthday dinner with her husband at a local restaurant when she overhears
people at a nearby table who are having a merry party for one of their group.
As strange coincidences go, this woman, Alix Summers, is also celebrating her
45th birthday. Josie finds out that the two women were not only born
on the same day, but also in the same hospital. This chance encounter may have
been the end of it, but now that Josie has found Alix, she will not let her go
that easily.
I admit that stalkers and uninvited
houseguests are some of my worst anxiety triggers in thrillers, so this book
kept me up all night! As tensions escalated, I had to keep reading until I had
all the answers, which was way past my bedtime (I advise to start this book
when you have lots of free time).
NONE OF THIS IS TRUE is probably one
of Jewell’s darkest books and one where she takes the unreliable narrator theme
to an extreme (as hinted in the title). As a very seasoned and talented
storyteller, she ratcheted up the tension slowly but steadily until it was
impossible to put the book down. There were quite a few hair-raising moments (and
a few EEEEWWWW ones, too), and I felt like helplessly watching a train speed
towards the abyss. Considering this unbearable tension, I felt that the ending
lost a bit of steam and felt strangely anti-climatic to me, though overall this
did not detract from the unique premise of the story. I loved the podcast and
Netflix-series style of the novel, which gave it a very contemporary feel and
allowed for short, punchy chapters and different POVs without losing its flow.
Summary:
In summary, NONE OF THIS IS TRUE
showcases Jewell’s talent as a storyteller and creator of original storylines.
Like other thrillers that rely on untruths and hidden secrets, it’s best to go
into this one blind and let it take you on a journey. It certainly kept me
enthralled until the very end and not much sleep was to be had until I found
out the answers.
No comments:
Post a Comment