None of This Is True

by Lisa Jewell

A life lived in fast-forward and now, apparently, she should peak and crest and then come slowly, contentedly down the other side, but it doesn’t feel as if there ever was a peak, rather an abyss formed of trauma that she keeps circling and circling with a knot of dread in the pit of her stomach.

It means she’s wrong, that everything, literally everything, about her is wrong and that she’s running out of time to make herself right.

She’s a consummate lurker. She never posts, she never comments, she never likes. She just looks.

That’s not what other husbands do. Only hers.

they are beaten, they are humiliated, they are downtrodden. And then they rise up, each and every one of them, they rise up and find goals they didn’t know they had.

Nathan has always been a walking list of pros and cons, from the very first time she met him.

oof familiar (not Jonathan, thank goodness)

she’s still waiting for inspiration to strike and her diary is empty and an empty diary is as stressful as a full diary when it comes to a career.

being a creator in a nutshell. it’s never clear which is more stressful: too many ideas, or none at all.

Walter didn’t really have much to do with the girls’ schooling, especially after all that business with the social services when Erin was in year six.

Is it any wonder that Alix is so torn about her marriage, when her husband is capable of such acts of generosity and affection, whilst also capable of making her want to die?

My husband is a lot older than me. I’ve been with

him since I was fifteen.” Josie pauses and glances up at Alix. Alix tries to hide her surprise. “Fifteen,” she repeats. “And he was…?” “Forty-two.”

“There’s power in being a teenager. I miss that power in some ways.

But I guess maybe everyone has a purpose. Though some are harder to fathom than others.”

Ugh what a jerk

This woman, she strongly suspects, loathes her daughter.

no child of a narcissist ever makes it out into the world unscathed.

all things considered, I’d probably tell thirteen-year-old me to run for the hills and not look back.”

And there it is, the point which it all boils down to eventually. The point where there are no words, no theories, no explanations for behaviors that baffle and infuriate and hurt. Just that. Men.

She’s starting to feel that Erin is part of the problem here. She’s starting to feel like Erin is no longer on her side.

“You really are stupid, aren’t you? Stupid as they get.” At the sound of these words, Josie feels the swirling fragments of the universe slow down and thicken and then clear and all that is left is red-hot fury that feels as if it’s burning her from the inside out.

she knows that it is here, at last, the moment she has been waiting for; she feels certainty rip through her like a cyclone.

Whatever happens, at least she’s free.”

Ooooh this lady has lost her mind. Ugh so creepy

“But she’s safer out there than she ever was in her own home. Wherever she is, she’s safe.”

“I’m trying to tell you my story, Alix. My truth. And you seem to be trying to make it into something it isn’t.

Interesting usage of "my truth" here, since we see this often in conflicting accounts to deflect inaccuracies.

She wants that ending to this story

you need to understand Josie properly, what she’s really like, before you can even hope to make any sense of what’s been going on.”

I wasn’t ready to be a mother. But mainly, I was not ready for Josie.”

“I started dating Walter. When Josie was about thirteen?”

I KNEW IT

she only told you what she wanted you to know, what suited her weird narrative.

“I think he’s dead,” she says to her mother when they’re alone together in the garden later on.

I saw this face. I can’t explain it. I saw this face and I thought: It’s you. It’s you.

she is hurting so badly it feels as if fingers are inside her gut shredding it into pieces

Alix didn’t know what color an artichoke was; she just knew that the dress was the same color as Nathan’s eyes and that was the most important thing.

And maybe one day I would have reached the end of the road, maybe one day I would have decided to live without him. But Josie took that choice from me.

‘Please send my love to your lovely children, especially Leon. I had such a soft spot for him. A lovely boy. A delicate boy. Keep him safe.’

What a crazy bitch omg