E. Lockhart

This was my first E. Lockhart book, but I am pretty sure it won't be my last. Genuine Fraud was an intense read, and I whizzed through it as I just could not put it down. I had so many questions, and a burning curiosity to understand what was going on... and just who Jule and Imogen are. This is a book filled with twists and turns and surprises just around the corner: while definitely enjoyable, that makes it incredibly hard to review this book without spoilers, which is why this review will probably be much shorter than usual.

I deeply enjoyed reading this book: it was fast-paced and full of suspense, and even though I had suspected a few of the twists from fairly early on, it kept me guessing myself right up to the end. The narrator is deeply unreliable, and none of the characters can be trusted, which makes this read even more delicious to devour in few sittings if (like me) you like working your brain to understand twisted relationships.

I have to admit, none of the characters were particularly (read: at all) likable: most of them are spoilt rich kids who do little more than travel, shop and enjoy themselves, while complaining about how miserable they are. They were, however, extremely well drawn, and while I disliked them profoundly, I found them to be very believable. Most of the stuff that happened appeared to me fairly unrealistic anyway, but overall worked well within the novel, so that I almost never questioned how a particular thing could be happening.

One thing I wasn't too convinced by was the way in which it was narrated. The story is told almost entirely backwards, starting with an event and working our way to how it all started. I thought this was a brilliant and very original way to tell a story, until I actually got into the book. While I liked the theory of it, I found reading backwards to be much too complicated for me, and I soon started feeling slightly confused and ended up losing track of some details. This was entirely me, though, and you might enjoy it greatly and not feel confused at all!

Overall, this was a very entertaining read, and would have been perfect if it hadn't managed to thoroughly confuse me after a while.

I received an e-arc of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.… (més)

Trigger warnings: Murder, death of a friend, blood depiction, physical injury, death of a father

5/10, this was another crime novel which was misplaced in the realistic section of the library, it's more crime than realistic so I must tell my library about that. That being said this was another crime novel that wasn't enjoyable to read at all since it was just so confusing and there weren't really any protagonists in there. The way the story is told is so perplexing I couldn't even wrap my head around it since it started off with the second last chapter then it goes backwards and in the end it ends at the last chapter like a book normally would so at least there's that. The main character Jules wasn't really a protagonist at all because she killed two people and then covered up the murders so I felt I was reading the villain's part of the story but there aren't any other points of view and the suspense wasn't even there due to how the story was laid out. The characters didn't make any sense because other characters believed that Imogen and Brooke died of accidental causes or killed themselves and then I jump to a previous chapter before they were killed which was very disorienting. If you like crime novels skip this one and try The Inheritance Games series instead of this.… (més)