None of This Is True

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summer 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 realize 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?

This discussion guide was shared and sponsored in partnership with Atria Books.

Book club questions for None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.

Consider how the book’s title influenced your perception of events and characters. What elements were you suspicious of from the start because of the title?

What about a shared birthday might make you feel bonded to someone? Would you feel a sense of connection and intrigue the way Josie and Alix do? Why do you think Josie imbues this relatively ordinary coincidence with so much importance and meaning?

In what ways are we encouraged to see Josie in a sympathetic light in the early chapters? How does Lisa Jewell’s characterization lead us to think of Josie as just a little quirky or lonely—and ultimately harmless?

As Alix learns increasingly dark details about Josie’s life, she is disturbed but she doesn’t intervene, nor does she stop the podcast interviews. Do you think Alix should have done something? What do you think the outcome would have been?

Josie ponders her life and choices throughout the novel, at one point wondering how she might leave her family and live elsewhere. She thinks to herself, “Alix is the answer to everything, somehow” (page 135). Why does Josie think Alix will change her life? How do you think she envisions a change at this point in the novel?

In what ways does class influence the book’s events? How do the two families’ different social classes factor into the plot?

Toward the end of the novel, we get more perspectives on Josie as a character and the truth of what she did—from her children, her mother, Katelyn, and others. With these increased points of view, how do you now see Josie?

What clues did you pick up on throughout the first half of the novel that made you think not all was as it seemed in Josie’s life? Were your predictions accurate?

None of This Is True Book Club Questions PDF

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"With so many versions of events, the ending shatters, leaving readers to decide whose is the truth...[it's] hard to look away from." —Kirkus

"Jewell devotees who love the author’s signature twisted characters and acidic cultural commentary will be satisfied by this pitch-black outing and its shocking climax…Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins fans, this one’s for you.” —Publishers Weekly

“Jewell’s newest could be her best yet… A terrific novel from a consistently satisfying writer.” —Booklist

"Lisa Jewell is on top-form with this pitch-black fever dream of a book - darker, twistier and more compelling than ever." —RUTH WARE, New York Times bestselling author of The It Girl

"A moody, slippery novel where nobody is as they seem. As breathtaking story is revealed within story, readers peel back the layers to find revenge, a meditation on the damage done by the past, and characters who could walk into the room and sit on your sofa. Here Jewell cements her position as queen of character-led fiction." —GILLIAN MCALLISTER, New York Times bestselling author of Wrong Place, Wrong Time

"Gloriously dark, so clever and completely addictive - this is Lisa Jewell at the very top of her game. This book kept me up reading late into the night and haunted my dreams!" —LUCY FOLEY, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Apartment

"I adore Lisa Jewell, and this is her best yet. I adored the unreliable characters, their dark secrets, the fateful collision of their two different worlds in the same corner of London. I simply could not leave it alone, and had to keep reading until I'd reached the heart-stopping conclusion. Utterly irresistible from the very first page." —KATHERINE FAULKNER, author of Greenwich Park

"None of This Is True is so suspenseful, so smart, so insightful. It's all three, in equal measure, all the way through. I loved the theme of family in all its glorious (and sometimes soul-destroying) forms. Lisa Jewell writes her characters with such emotional intelligence and generosity that I cared about all of them...she takes the most universal observation and tosses it in very lightly at the end of a funny sentence—and it truly takes my breath away. So much of this novel will stay in my mind forever and that's a tremendous gift." —KATHERINE HEINY, author of Early Morning Riser