Podcaster Alix Summer records her birthday twin, Josie Fair, and slowly learns that the story on the tape is not the whole story.
A fast, creepy slow burn built from tape, documentary inserts and unreliable memories. The ending asks you to rethink every interview, though the last reveal rests on its least trustworthy narrator. Four out of five (draft opinion).
Every guide comes as a video and a full written article. Pick the one you need: the review is spoiler-free, the ending explained is not.
None of This Is True ending explained: the podcast tape against the facts, how Nathan dies, three versions of Brooke Ripley and Josie's last memory. Full spoilers.
None of This Is True (2023) is a psychological thriller by Lisa Jewell, first published in Great Britain by Century in 2023 and in the US by Atria that August. Two women who share a forty-fifth birthday meet in a pub, and one of them, a podcaster, starts recording the other.
Content note: the book deals with child grooming and abuse, domestic violence and murder.
Below you’ll find the ending explained (full spoilers): the tape against the documentary, Nathan’s death, three versions of what happened to Brooke Ripley, and the final scene on a bus.
A fast, creepy slow burn built from tape, documentary inserts and unreliable memories. The ending asks you to rethink every interview, though the last reveal rests on its least trustworthy narrator. Four out of five (draft opinion). Read it if: you like unreliable narrators and stories that reframe themselves at the end; you enjoy domestic thrillers built from podcasts and true crime documentaries; you want a tense, quick read with short chapters; you don't mind child abuse, murder and an open ending. Skip it if: grooming, abuse of a child and murder are a hard line for you; you want a neat ending where every question is answered; you dislike slow-burn setups before the thriller kicks in; you want a likeable lead: both women are hard to warm to.
Our ending explained covers the final chapters in full, with spoilers. None of This Is True ending explained: the podcast tape against the facts, how Nathan dies, three versions of Brooke Ripley and Josie's last memory. Full spoilers. Ending explained: None of This Is True →
A psychological thriller by Lisa Jewell, published in 2023. Podcaster Alix Summer meets Josie Fair, who turns forty-five on the same day she does, and starts recording her life story for a new podcast.
Alix Summer and Josie Fair, their husbands Nathan Summer and Walter Fair, Josie's daughters Roxy and Erin, Josie's mother Pat O'Neill, and Brooke Ripley, a teenager who disappeared in 2014.
No. It is a work of fiction. The Netflix series and podcast inside the book are invented, and the author says in the Q and A at the back of the edition we read that no scripted podcast sits inside the book.
