I liked this book a lot. An awful lot. It has a very intriguing story line and draws you in immediately. Why does Jule call herself Imogen? What is she running away from? Who is out to get her? The story is revealed by going back in time, and little by little we get to know who Jule is and who Imogen is. It's very surprising and gripping. Suitable for adults and young adults. An excellent book.

I REALLY enjoyed We Were Liars, so I was expecting good things from this book and it mostly delivered! Jule is creepy, and a totally unreliable narrator (to the point where I'm still not 100% sure I know who she is by the end of the book) and it does feel suitably twisty enough to be considered a thriller (though I won't lie, I was expecting something as big as the twist in We Were Liars and it didn't come, which was a bit disappointing).

The main thing to know about Genuine Fraud is that the story is told backwards, with the chapters getting chronologically further away from the opening scene. This takes away some of the tension, I think, because it's fairly obvious when certain events are going to take place from the outset, but that didn't make the BIG MOMENT any less shocking or brutal, so way to go E. Lockhart.

One thing to note is that this book is very barely YA. The characters are all college age or older, and their concerns aren't those of your typical YA character. The target audience here should really be people who like books by authors like Ruth Ware or Paula Hawkins.

This is a really quick, pacey read and is probably best read in as few sittings as possible so the flow isn't interrupted too much, and it does unravel slightly at the end so be ready to push through.

Oh, this is a good read. I loved it. 

It's a story told backwards, which is a tricky thing to pull off, but e manages it. It mimics real life, as well, in the way that you start off with an opinion about somebody, and then learn a little more, and a little more, and gradually develop an understanding, and with that your opinion changes. It's a book about identity and the structure itself plays with that. The fraud is perpetrated on you, and gradually uncovered by you. I don't really want to say any more, because the pleasure is partly in the gradual uncovering of the truth. It's a great read. Gripping, and intriguing, and clever.

I love the way this is written! It’s so clever and I couldn’t put the books down as I wanted the story to unravel for me to find out what had happened!

Now I loved E Lock Hearts previous novel, We Were Liars. I found that to be a beautifully crafted story with complex characters an interesting setting and a brilliant twist tying it all together. Genuine Fraud was none of these things.

I understand when authors like to use an unreliable protagonist and i often enjoy reading from their pov. It’s exciting to have to figure out what bits of the story you can and can’t trust. This book however was an example of how to take it too far. From the first to the last page of this book i don’t feel i ever got a feel for out main character Jule. Apart from a very small back story about one event in her life we never find or discover anything else about her as a character. There are just so many un answered questions it goes from being mysterious to just frustrating. I think the characters in general were a big root of the problem with this book. Not one of them were fleshed out enough to be even remotely interesting. I found myself not interested in either the story or it’s characters.

Another gripe i had with this book was the structure. This book jumped time frames every other page spanning weeks before then weeks after then two days before then 3 days after. It was so confusing to try and keep up with the time frames and what was actually happening when.

I heard a lot of people saying this book has a mind blowing plot twist at the end but again this completely failed for me. I guessed this whole ‘plot twist’ about a quarter way through the novel. I would have been fine if that plot twist was at least an exiting plot line but i’ve already seen this type of thing in multiple books before.

Overall i’m just hugely disappointed with this book. I expected a lot more and ended up having a book i really didn’t enjoy to read. This was the farthest thing from a mystery or thriller i have ever read. It was dull, predictable and quite honestly pointless.

I've seen this book talked about over on BookTube alot with a lot of varying ratings. I was definitely excited to get a copy of this through NetGalley.

In the beginning of the story, it's rather strange and hard to get into. It definitely establishes that we're going to be following along with an unreliable narrator.

I've never read anything by E. Lockhart before so I didn't know what to expect from the writing style. I liked this book a little more than I thought I might.

Thanks for the advance copy!

This book was extremely difficult to get through. Though it is short in length, I found the plot also very short and not particularly interesting in many ways. The protagonist sees herself as an action hero, which I actually loved as a concept but which just feels like a waste of time in practise. The book also moves backwards which should reveal twists and turns but it's fairly predictable what will happen. I had a hard time with this book once past the first 20% or so when it became clear that there was no real strong plot. There is no indication that the protagonist really wants or needs anything and no obvious motivation for anything she does and all the other characters are so two dimensional that it's hard to care at all.

I loved ‘we were liars’ so was keen to read this new work. It didn’t disappoint. Told in a unusual way, your opinion on Jule is challenged all the way through. I just loved it!

I read my way through about one third of this book and gave up. I found it a bit confusing but, having said that, if it had been more interesting, I’m sure I’d have concentrated better. I liked none of the characters. I was so disappointed as I thoroughly enjoyed the author’s previous book, We Were Liars.

"she didn't know if she could love her own mangled, strange heart"

* * * *
4 / 5

I wasn't really sure what to expect when I cracked open Genuine Fraud. I haven't read Lockhart's other well received book, We Were Liars, and I haven't read many thrillers or mystery novels. But I was very impressed by Genuine Fraud - it was short, a light 250 pages, and so didn't drag unnecessarily on, it packed a punch, had some weird twists, and really made me work for it. This is not an easy read - my brain really had to work to make sense of what was going on - but it was so worth it.

"she looked the same, looked just like anyone, but she saw the world differently after that. To be a physically powerful woman - it was something"

Jule is an athlete and shrouded in mystery. Her stories about her past constantly change and sound like lies. Imogen is a rich heiress, cheats on her boyfriends, and flighty. On the island of Martha's Vineyard, Jule and Imogen become fast friends having known each other at school. They trade clothes, gossip, and boys until they become so similar it's hard to tell them apart. We open the novel with Jule at a fancy hotel, relaxing on poolsides and benching weights, letting the summer pass her by. From there we move backwards in time, always backwards into the past, to discover how Imogen and Jule and Forrest and Paolo and Brooke are intricately tied together.

It's hard to say what Genuine Fraud is actually about. It's about murder and love and female friendships. It's about an author trying to shock a reader and about a girl who is a little bit psychotic. It's about people not being who you expect them to be, about mistaken identities, and how making one little choice can change your life massively in the space of a year. It's about feminism and action heroes and always thinking that we are right and the centre of our own stories. Reading this book made my head spin with wild theories: is Imogen even real? And so many questions: Who is Jule? What does she want?

"the gun felt hot against her back. she was armed. she had no heart to break. like the hero of an action movie, Jule West Williams was the center of the story"

If you have read more thrillers than I have, perhaps you won't find the plot particularly surprising. But the delivery, the bizarre and elusive main character, the choice to tell the story back to front, should grab your attention. I read this book in a couple of sittings over two days which meant I was able to pick up on a couple of small details and allusions to things that I think I probably would have missed had I read Genuine Fraud over a longer period of time. That and the emotional disconnect between myself and the characters, who enthralled me but who I was distant from - like watching a cool bug under a microscope - is why this book gets four stars, not five.

Overall, I really loved Genuine Fraud and devoured it. Jule is a great, if morally insane, character; she's wild and mysterious and violent. She is not a good person, but she's an interesting focus of a story.

My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of Genuine Fraud

I haven't read We Were Liars yet but heard all the hype, of course it's on my tbr. So when this book came on Netgalley I jumped at the chance of reading.
Firstly, let me say I'm not a big reader of thrillers but I will literally read anything.
I loved the gimmick of this being told in reverse (but did get a bit confused in parts) but sadly I HATED the main character, she really, really got on my nerves. And that put a damper on reading it for me, a lot.
I'm sure this book will appeal to many but sadly not to me.

“It was like being able to fight, she realized. And being able to change accents. They were powers that lived in your body. They would never leave you, no matter how you looked, no matter who loved or didn’t love you.” 

Thank You to NetGalley or the opportunity to read this book.

This is my first . Lockhart book, and I'm so excited, I've been seeing it everywhere, and it's been so hyped for me, that I could only wish I got a change to read it.

Genuine Fraud follows Jule, who's intelligence lead her into a charmed life. With so many lies and reinventions of who she wants to be, it is only a matter of time until it all catches up with her. With an intense friendship, murder, bad romance and a girl who refuses to be the person she once was.

I loved the writing style, E. Lockhart kept me guessing for more and more, I could not put it down since I started, and I was always guessing what would happen next.The way that is writen complements the suspense of the story. Without spiling anything, I can say this is full of mind games, and plot twists with some flashbacks, that work perfectly for this story.

I loved Jule although she's a different character than we normally see in YA, this difference made me care more about Jule, however I can see how it may seem that it is not relatable to any one who reads this book.

“Do you think a person is as bad as her worst actions?...I mean, do our worst actions define us when we're alive? Or, do you think human beings are better than the very worst things we have ever done?”

At first it was fun and different but then the style of the rewinding story got very old very quickly. This is down to the almost clinical way it was set up so it felt like I was flipping back through a book instead of just going to the beginning and starting from there. It made sense in the beginning but once we started learning about how Jule found herself in that situation it would have been a nice change of pace it the story started to unfold chronologically.
It felt like I was taking two steps forward and one step back and by that point you have already figured out the story and just want your suspicions confirmed.

The story in general was pretty cool. Not really knowing or trusting the protagonist and watching her characteristics become undone and seeing how she reinvents herself - all that jazz was fun to watch and even imagine whether you could do the same, but not really knowing Jule came at the cost of not caring about her. I realised I wasn't too concerned with her past, with whether or not she was telling the truth or with what her damage was and once that happens it's a drag to get through the rest of the book.

Despite how short this book was... it was still too long for the plot. If more happened or less was written it would have kept me intrigued for longer, but by half way I was pretty much ready for it to be over.

This is a short book that I read in about 3-4 hours.
It's really gripping and there are loads of twists and turns that keep you hooked.
At first I really admired the character Jule. I loved how tough but smart she was and wanted to get fit and strong so I could take care of myself like she does. Lockhart really drew me in to the character which make the revelations about Jule even more shocking!
I found the writing easy to follow and I loved that the story was written going back in time, it was a great change. Unfortunately, there were a few moments where I had to reread sections to clarify certain events in the book. I was also able to predict a few events in the book which is why I couldn't give it a higher rating. I would rate this 3.5 out of 5.

I received an advance copy thanks to netgalley. I really enjoyed the backwards timeline which slowly revealed the reason for everything. The plot isn't terribly original though, but it was a quick, fun read.

Sorry I didn’t finish this book, I didn’t enjoy it. I just couldn’t get into it at all.

Many thanks to Netgalley and E Lockhart for the copy of this book. I agreed to give my unbiased opinion voluntarily.

Two girls, two identities, mix them up and what do you believe?
Told backwards from June 2017 to June 2016, this unusual story confuses yet beguiles. How easy is it to change identities and disappear?
Imogen, rich, adopted, craves freedom.
Jule, orphaned, athletic, homeless.
Both girls have secrets yet some are darker than others.

The following brief review appears on Goodreads, but I hope if possible to write a more detailed one for my blog. (My life is just being slightly eaten by university right now.)

wait, that's the end? BUT I STILL HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS

I mean this definitely isn't a book for people who always like to know what's going on because I spent most of it not having a clue what was going on. In a good way. Mostly. Literally nothing in this book is as it seems, so every time you think you've got to grips with it, the rug gets pulled out from under you again. It's very effective, but also very confusing.

I think my ability to keep track of things suffered slightly because I was reading an ARC and some of the formatting was out of whack, but also I have a terrible memory for things like dates so the fact that the headers told you when something happened didn't allow me to keep track of things very well -- I couldn't remember what the previous one had been in order to know if these were before or after. I settled into it more as it went on, but it did make it super confusing at first.

I'm also still... really confused. I'd hoped for some kind of explanation at the end, but all I got was more questions, because all the answers I thought I'd been given turned out to be fake as well.

Rating: 3.5*

I just couldn't get into this book as I really didn't care at all what happened to the main character - she really irritated me! I am sure this is just me and it is a great read but I had to give up half way through.

There's a sweet spot in the suspense genre where character study combines with psychological horror. This sweet spot has produced masterpieces like Dare Me, Dangerous Girls, Allegedly, and now Genuine Fraud. These are stories about bad people who don't get their punishment, because that's not how the real world works. Real life is messy. Sometimes, bad people live on.

First things first: I KNOW a lot of people are going to be comparing this to We Were Liars. Genuine Fraud is a very different novel, and I expect that plenty of people who hated We Were Liars's pretentious rich kids and poetic writing style will love Genuine Fraud's straightforward writing style and morally black main character. I enjoyed the former a fair amount, but this book blew me away. Weirdly enough, the difference between We Were Liars and Genuine Fraud is similar to the difference between Dangerous Girls and Dangerous Boys: they're both excellent books, but the first one of each pair is more concentrated on atmosphere and one final twist, while the second one is more about the why than the how.

Genuine Fraud is the story of Jule West-Williams and her best friend Imogen. Anything else said here would spoil the plot. This book is told in flashbacks, with brilliantly subtle clues as to what's going on, and reveals that made my heart pound. I have to say that I wasn't totally shocked by much about the book, but damn, if the ride wasn't enjoyable.

This book is about the outcasts, the kids who aren't rich and perfect. It's about how far someone might go to have their own happy, wealthy life. The tension builds so slowly in this story. You feel sympathy for Julep towards the beginning, and even towards the end.

I admit, there were confusing parts. If you're someone who wants everything to be clear from the beginning, don't pick this up. But for me, the unanswered questions worked perfectly. This was a book that left me absolutely desperate to finish. Even when I predicted twists, every moment was full of tension. Just... let this book surprise you.