Reviews with content warning for Grief - None of This Is True

Two women - Alix and Josie, cross paths one evening at a restaurant and discover they are "birthday twins" ie both are 45 and born on the same day. Alix has a podcast and agrees to interview Josie.

I must say I really liked this book... until the last quarter. Why oh why do authors this?! Something is very wrong when the author wants you to put aside big moral no-no's and be ok with

a young teen having an intimate relationship with a married man in his 40s. And we have to remove all logic that that said paedophilic relationship hasn’t contributed to her current unwell mental state. Umm what? How could it not?! That’s child abuse and Ms Jewell wants us to be like “no probs.” And don’t get me started on the mother! WE are also supposed to suspend criticism that SHE didn’t affect Josie’s mental health!! A woman that pursued a married man and was pissed off when her daughter – a 13 year old at that, started to date him ie took her man! Umm wtf?? Maybe her daughter turned out like that because she sounds like a horrible mother who quite openly says she didn’t want her and only had her because it was too late to abort her (!!) and she doesn’t even remember the name of Josie’s father! C’mon. As if this wouldn’t affect a child! I'm not saying everyone or even one person that has been abused would become like Josie, not at all. But none of this trauma is taken into account when her actions are mentioned. All this yet still the author’s tone is of zero compassion to Josie and worse that she is summed up as cold and calculating and “just pure evil” - too simplistic and frankly lazy writing. Your readers are smarter than this so treat them as such. I don’t know of anyone that finished this book and was ok to overlook those doozies. But for me, to dismiss the fact Josie was raised in a household knowing she wasn’t wanted and that not playing a part in her development is ridiculous. Not to mention her mother knew that Walter – a man of 42 was pursuing her child and didn’t intervene or protect her is unfathomable. Very few children could come out of this completely unscathed. All it shows is that the mother did not give a hoot for her daughter’s well being and was more concerned about the fact she had been dumped for her daughter – a child for goodness sakes! If the author had not dismissed these factors, and made it a more robust psych exploration of child trauma and abuse leading to personality disorder or psychosis, I would have swallowed that up, hook, line and sinker. But what the author gives us – this poor evaluation that Josie is simply evil is just so disappointing. But Ms Jewell, please don’t tell me that Josie’s personality, behaviour and actions weren’t in a big way shaped by child abuse and a mother that let her down. Oh and btw, Walter being a “good father” does not erase the fact that he is a paedophile nor does it mean he is now redeemed. Can't believe that even needs to be said :/

At the end, it’s ambiguous who is telling the truth. But we do know Josie 100% kidnapped and killed Nathan – accident or not. We do know 100% the weird, shady things Josie did (taking some of Alix’s stuff, hanging around Alix’s home etc). Half of me is good with the ending. But the other half of me is like "well what was the point of this book then? The things we don't know for sure are kinda important to the story. Like if Roxy did kill Brooke, that changes things. Like Josie wanting to come clean with what happened and Walter threatening her changes things too! But for now, I'm leaving this book thinking this: Josie being on the run is fitting. She did afterall kill a man - whether she has psychosis due to childhood trauma or not, and will now forever be looking over her shoulder. I think she has rewritten her narrative as a protective mechanism; and to one that she can cope with/live with. So much so that she can no longer separate the truth from the lies.

Overall I think most readers will zip through this book quickly - despite my issues mentioned above it was still a page turner. Whether you are satisfied with the ending is a whole other matter! :)

Content Warnings