on Jane Friedman site:

Readers are intrigued by what is or might be true in literature. Even when authors vow that our fiction is just that—fiction!—readers interrogate us, and dissect characters, behavior, plot, and themes to find hidden elements of autobiography. There’s a sense that truth adds value to books. And, when the opposite occurs and facts are exposed as fiction—as was recently alleged in an Observer article about Raynor Winn’s memoir, The Salt Path—the weight of the work diminishes significantly.

During an event at this year’s Kingsmead Book Fair in Johannesburg, two authors were interviewed about their new fiction. Paige Nick’s novel, Book People, tells a rollicking story about the (largely but not entirely) imagined shenanigans of a Facebook book club with more than 23,000 members, which, in reality, the author founded and administers. Nick freely admits that some of the characters in the book are modeled on actual members and that, with the relevant members’ permission, she lifted several posts and comments directly from the site for her novel.