I didn't like this as much as I wanted to ,at times it felt disjointed and the characters were not always believable .I'm glad I read it as it was interesting but was nothing new.

This was a tricky book to like.
It’s clever, intriguingly structured but I felt detached from it throughout.
It’s probably best to go into this without knowing too much. The basic story revolves around two young girls - Imogen and Jules. They are connected but we’re never totally sure how. Genuine friendship, or a clever con?
Told in an unusual episodic style it was reminiscent of ‘Memento’. Jules was a character I never felt we got to know so it was hard to feel much about what we learn about her.

This book is odd. It's suspenseful and interesting, and the main character is so intriguing, but it is also missing something. If I weren't trapped on a plane while I was reading it I think I would have lost motivation to read it. The strongest part of this book is the character development. I felt like I got way inside Jule's head while still not knowing so much about her. We get only glimpses into her past and what made her become the person she is. The structure of the book was also pretty interesting. It wasn't the masterful structuring of We Were Liars but it revealed information perfectly for the plot. The weak points of this novel don't outweigh the good points, but I didn't really feel compelled to keep reading beyond a desire to understand Jule better. Overall, not incredible but not awful.

I felt tortured as a reader. Genuine Fraud is one of those books which toy with you, and whether you’ll like it depends on how much endurance you’ve got as a reader. I clearly didn’t have enough.

We’re thrown straight into the story without any knowledge of what is going on. The main character Jules seems to be on the run, she goes by a different name and is telling lies. Why? That’s what you have to keep asking yourself for the duration of the book, which is told in a confusing moving-backwards-in-time fashion.

"You don’t add up. You keep changing the details of the stories you tell, and it’s like you don’t even know it."

In the end, there wasn’t that much to it though. I love a good twist, but the only way suspense is created here is by withholding information from the reader - information which you’ll be able to guess anyway.

It doesn’t really help that the characters aren’t likeable at all. The main character is sociopath and this is her story, but unlike books such as American Psycho there’s no uncomfortable fascination I was able to develop for her character, but pure annoyance. People she meets along the way, the classic rich white kids kind, aren’t much more interesting to read about, so their fates didn’t cause any kind of reaction in me. Oh well.

This not the kind of book you can keep putting down and pick back up again in a couple of hours/days as it can get very confusing as the book is written backwards so it starts at the end and works it way to the how things began which I personally did not like at all. I also did not like the protagonist which I appreciate is kind of the idea and sometimes this is great but for me it meant that I wasn't invested at all in the story or the characters. The only saving grace was that it was fairly fast paced and there was always something happening and that did keep my attention.

It's quite hard to tell anyone about the book without giving it away but in short its about stolen identity and the people affected. I did thing the ending was a bit rushed with more questions than answers. I get what the author was trying to achieve but unfortunately I don't think it really worked.

It wasn't a terrible read and I did get through it fairly quickly but I wouldn't recommend it. That being said I think I will E. Lockhart's first book ago as I have heard great things.

I will say one positive and that's the great cover!

I received this book free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

I really enjoyed this book - well written, clever and original, with flawed realistic characters. Yes, there are obvious parallels with The Talented Mr Ripley, but it wasn't a problem for me and the author mentions this in the note at the beginning of the book. The way the story was told in reverse chronology worked really well and added the intrigue. I am definitely going to read other books by E Lockhart.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

I really wanted to love this book, but I didn't finish it. I actually thought that the characters were the same person at first, and got very confused when reading it! The writing style jarred with me, and I couldn't get to grips with it, and the characters didn't engage me like I hoped. DNF. Head fab reviews so perhaps it is just not my cup of tea, but I was disappointed.

Arc provided by netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thou i (surprisingly) enjoyed the first two chapters of this book, the rest felt so flat to me. No suspence, dull most of the time, the characters are not particularly likable and definitely not interesting or complex. I didn’t get them.
I didn’t read We Were Liars so i’m not comparing this book to that work but at the same time, Genuine Frats wasn’t really for me and i’ve found the final Author Note like a further explanation (read: justify) that was necessary to be added since the whole book wasn’t brilliant.
Sorry, not for me.

This book was great from start to finish. It flows great and really holds your interest. Jules is a well written character and she's full of surprises, a little crazy and carefree I guess you would say. To me this was a total flip from We Were Liars which was amazing but way different. I love both and look forward to whatever comes next. This does leave you hanging so maybe a continuation novel is in store?? That would be great!!

One of the most disappointing books of the year. I was so excited for Genuine Fraud and the first chapter was brilliant. It was fast-paced, shocking and really made me want to read on. But, after that, everything fell flat. I could see how it was supposed to be gripping as each chapter ended with a teaser of information. You got one answer and ten more questions. The problem was, the questions didn't interest me and I couldn't feel the suspense.

Jules is a very dislikable protagonist and there are no other characters to empathise with, meaning the story is hard to connect with. Her actions have no realistic motives and her line of thought is hard to follow. I thought I'd get some answers but I was 99% in with still no real, solid, genuine (ha) answers and by that point I'd lost interest.

The story jumps around in chronology to the point where it becomes more confusing than anything else. Having said all that, I read the whole book in 2 days and so found it fast-paced. I just kept getting bored and distracted...

I'd compare it to There's Someone Inside Your House, which was also a big disappointment this year!

I'm a little bit OCD when it comes to numbers (well ok, maybe I'm severely OCD about numbers) so I wasn't sure how I would cope with Genuine Fraud beginning at Chapter 18. Well I was so engrossed in the story that I didn't really notice, to be honest. I just wanted to know what had happened to get to this point in time and even though I sometimes didn't know what the devil was going on, I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected.

Jule and Imogen are unlikely friends but friendship doesn't see class, religion or skin colour but Jule is a fraudster and it isn't long before she turns herself into a mirror image of Imogen. It isn't long before Jule assumes Imogen's identity and starts living her life, but Imogen will turn up and put an end to all that, won't she?

There is so much suspense in Genuine Fraud, making it a compelling addictive read. I felt so afraid for Imogen's safety early on and as time ticked backwards that feeling intensified until I had to read every single page before going to sleep. I don't know whether it was the working backwards, but I did sometimes feel a bit confused at times as to what was going on. Despite this, it held my attention enough to continue on and I wonder if perhaps we haven't seen the last of Jule...in fact I think a sequel is a must!

Genuine Fraud is a quick read at less than 300 pages which is just as well as it's quite hard to put down! A super little YA read that made me look at unlikely friendships in a different light. It's true that you can never see inside someone's mind, and nor would I want to, but it's frightening to think that some people may have hidden agendas. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer...but which is which?

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

Dull. Took me a while to catch on to the narrative structure, but even then still felt confused. It could've been fun telling the story back to front but it wasn't. Just CONFUSION. Even the "ending" that was really the "beginning" was just like okay whatever. The narrator was a hot mess and so unreliable. Too unreliable and too much of a mess that it was hard to follow the story / to be invested in the characters.

I loved We Were Liars when I read it a few years ago, but it did not prepare me for Genuine Fraud! This is however a stunner of a book. Lockhart reveals plot and character details slowly, drawing you in as the story unfolds backwards in time, meaning you are constantly guessing and second guessing throughout.

Jule is a disturbing and flawed heroine, but you can't deny she's got chutzpah!

I was really excited to start reading this book as I had absolutely adored We Were Liars and the plot twist in that book and so I was looking forward to the same type of thing with Genuine Fraud. Sadly I was disappointed as for the first half of the book I was really confused and then realised that the timeline of the book is backwards. This isn't something I've ever experienced in a book before and honestly it's not something I can see myself interested in reading in the future because it kind of took away the enjoyment of the book for me.

Coming away from this point, E. Lockhart did manage to produce excellent characters and I found Jule to be very twisted but also genius and I loved this about her. She was cunning, smart and independent but was also evil at times too. I was left confused by whether or not Imogen was actually there or not, a lot of it was misleading.

If this book had been told in the normal format then I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more however this is what slightly ruined the experience for. I still would recommend the book to people but if you're easily confused like me then yeah, it may take you a while to actually realise what's happening haha!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for sending me this book to review!



I really don’t know how to feel about this book. I’ve never read an E. Lockhart book before, so I was quite excited after hearing brilliant things, but I was a little disappointed.

I didn’t feel invested at all with the story, and it just fell a little flat for me. I really wanted to like it, so I’m sad I didn’t! I did manage to finish it because it was only short, but I can’t say I’d want to read it again.

I do hope to give We Were Liars a chance one day though, I still have hope!

You can buy Genuine Fraud on Amazon UK here!

Though I started off iffy about it, I ended up loving the book. It was gripping, not exactly in a nail-biting sense, but in a way that made you just want to read on because of the the crazy writing-backwards style that kept throwing up more and more information that complicated everything just a smidge more. There were sections, especially in the first few chapters, that felt too much like flat narration and info-dumping about Jule's background, but I got too involved in the story to care about it later on.

It's tagged as a YA book, but I'm not sure it falls into that category. I'd say it was more new adult than young adult. I'm also taking away one star because I'm not totally convinced by the plot. There were a few coincidences and I can't believe the police could be so stupid. But saying too much would be a giveaway. As I said earlier, it's not an edge-of-your-seat thriller, there's not even any real suspense as you are meant to figure out quite early on what's going on, but it was thoroughly enjoyable and I'd highly recommend it.

I found this book a very complex read. I had to keep flicking back and forward as the author seemed to have made some rudimentary mistakes on what character was talking to whom.

Jule and Imogen are friends. Imogen has mysteriously disappeared, apparently committing suicide.

Jules is living in Imogen’s flat in London, and she finds Imogen’s suicide note. Jules runs into her ex Paolo in the Barbican, and Jules is very nervous about this.

The book starts at the end, then the time line flits around before comfortably moving back in chronological order.

At one point I was going to abandon this book because I felt it was losing its way, and hadn’t been proof read properly. Then the penny dropped. What we were reading about the characters were from one perspective, and it wasn’t always the truth we were being told.

I loved it and once I realised exactly what was going on I was gripped. The only thing for me was the ending , in that I need to know what happened to Jule!

I absolutely loved Lockhart's last book, We Were Liars, so I jumped at a chance for an ARC of her newest book. This ya thriller is told backwards, starting at the end with our protagonist on the run and we slowly discover what choices brought her there. Honestly the story being told backwards seemed more like a crutch. If you were to read the book the "correct way" it wouldn't be as exciting or make a whole lot of sense. While it wasn't my favorite book I did read this in less than 48 hours it flew by so fast. I would say to enjoy this lower your expectations and go along with the ride and try not to over analyze like I did.

If I had to describe this book, I wouldn't be able to. This book was very confusing for me and very difficult to get into. I found the main character to be unlikeable and the backwards sequence of events made me confused and I struggled to remember the main characters. I liked the latter half of the book better as it was easier to understand and get through. If all the book had been like that I would have enjoyed it a lot more. I'm unable to give an in-depth review as it's more of a mysterious book and saying anything will spoil the book. All in all, it was okay and somewhat enjoyable but not a memorable read.