Genuine Fraud

౨ৎ | the type of girl who blew off studying and yet filled her favorite books with sticky notes.

— ★ 1/5

this book was bad. like no other words come to mind but bad.

i tried to like it, i really did.

the writing style sucked and i was confused all the time and retained nothing. jules annoyed me like someone did something she didn’t like and she just chucked a tantrum, hurt them in some way, then changed everything about herself.

BORING. next.

Nothing about this book was surprising. If only the writing was better. If only the storytelling left room for surprises. If only I didn’t figure most of the book out in the first few chapters because of how it was laid out. But LAST BUT NOT LEAST, if only the characters were at least somewhat likeable but SCREW THAT, Lockheart said “I’m gonna create a cast of characters so shallow and obnoxious”. I only give it two stars cuz I think I’m too nice to give it one.

I rather enjoyed this! I hate that I went into this thinking I wasn't going to enjoy it because I'd heard mixed reviews. I even thought about not giving this book a chance, though the synopsis DEFINITELY intrigued me. Well, I'm SUPER glad I picked this up! This was a weird book. I loved that I didn't really know what was going on most of the time, and I loved the format in which this story was presented. I did get a little confused at first, but over time the pieces started to fall into place and waiting for the next clue/bit of information was exciting! I definitely thought this book would have more thriller aspects to it. I feel it landed more on the mystery side; some parts were thrilling, but mostly I just kept wondering things and asking questions. I feel like a couple things could've been more fleshed out, but I'm afraid to say what since I loved not knowing what to expect from this book and hope someone else will too. I also don't really see the We Were Liars comparison? Yes, this story also follows wealthy people and a beach, but that's the only connection I could make? I also read We Were Liars YEARS ago and don't remember it but maybe if the story had been fresh, I would've felt differently. This definitely wasn't the best book I've ever read, and I wasn't on the edge of my seat the entire time. But I was intrigued, and I was suspicious, and I loved this dark and twisty journey.

Definitely a 5/5! This book had me totally invested and it is now one of my favorites :)

Have you ever read a book that, once finished, makes you ask, "Was there a moral to this story?" THIS novel is an example of that! E. Lockhart takes us through Julietta "Jule" West William's criminal escapades around the world as she tries to flee the police. In the beginning she's busted, which leads Lockhart to tell us in reverse-chronological order what Jule has done. Her crimes revolve around her friend Melody Bacon, rechristened as Imogen "Immie" Sokoloff upon adoption, impersonating Immie - after she disappears - with her fortune to pay for disguises. Jule's sometimes delves into the philosophy of feminism in superhero stories (she views herself as a "superhero," constantly exercising and watching action movies), often questioning the lack of female heros or disbelief of evil women in real life, which is interesting and shows us the academic side of her, but Lockhart never tells us why Jule committed her first crime (murder - which is the reason she's on the run) nor what events during her life shaped her into the person she is today. It's an interesting read; Jule's plans and thoughts are well-written, including the lives of her friends, but I expected closure regarding WHY Jule is the way she is, which left me confused and frustrated.

Wtf tf is this!!!!!!!!!!!!!! E Lockhart does it again with the mindfuck man

unpopular opinion: I didn't like We Were Liars much but I was willing to give E. Lockhart another chance. Unfortunately I feel EVEN WORSE about Genuine Fraud and so this is the end of the road for us. I'm breaking up with this author. “She didn't know if she could love her own mangled, strange heart. She wanted someone else to do it for her, to see it beating behind her ribs and to say, I can see your true self. It is there, and it is rare and worthy. I love you.” lets start with the few things I did like • non liner timeline: I keep on saying this and saying this but just to say it again. I LOVE books that mess around with timeline and narrative structure. Genuine Fraud is told entirely backwards and it definitely made for an interesting way to mask and reveal twists. Even though it took a bit to get the feel of this flow once you got your bearings it was really easy to read backwards. This is more of a "why-dunnit" than a "who-dunnit", kind of like The Secret History. . So that whole set-up was fun, even though I feel like Lockhart totally wasted it in some ways. But I'll get to that later. • unreliable and unlikeable narrator: In this house we love and support unreliable narrators who are bad people. I always enjoy reading an unreliable narrator and Jules is EXTREMELY unreliable which was fun. She's also very unlikeable, even though I saw where she was coming from and while I didn't ever really empathise with her I did enjoy following her and thought she was pretty fun. • the beginning: I LOVED the opening of this book. We're following Jules, who is going by the name Imogen and is on the run from the police and anyone else who might know her. It was such an interesting way to start and immediately suspense and mystery is heightened as we wonder how she got here. Also, Jule is a total badass at the beginning which I liked. Unfortunately the frenetic fun and suspense of the beginning got lost somewhere along the way in this one. • the discussions around women in society: there are a lot of discussions about womens roles in society and conforming to social conventions. I found these pretty interesting especially toward the beginning. The discussions around Imogen's boyfriends and how they were trying to turn her into something she wasn't were something I could relate to. I just felt these discussions weren't taken far enough and again, felt like recycled words I've heard before. I like that this book deliberately set out to subvert the tropes it criticised though, that was fun. and then there's all this stuff I did NOT like • IT WAS BORING: So this book took me nearly TWENTY DAYS to read and it's only 200 pages long that is .... ridiculous. The suspense is created at the beginning but then it just peters out. It becomes pretty obvious pretty early on what has happened here and the whole book is SO predictable. I think I guessed every single reveal and that kind of made the point of the backwards timeline null and void. I felt like I've read this book before somewhere. • climaxed way too early: seriously .. there is one event I really wanted to know how/why it occurred and that was revealed like, not even half way through. That was the climax of the story and it was SO POINTLESS after that. I did not care about the last 100 pages of this book at all because everything I was wondering about got revealed so early on. • jule wasn't that interesting to me: this was supposed to be a lot about Jule and her characterisation/motivations but I didn't find her very interesting. I felt like I'd seen this character many times before and her motivations felt really weak to me. Lockhart seemed undecided on it I should sympathise with Jule or not and it just kinda created this mess of ... nothing. I didn't find Jule to be complex or particularly interesting and it really detracted from my enjoyment of this story. I just finished Gone Girl and that had such an interesting female lead in the same kinda vein as this and it really hammered home to me how weak Jule felt as a character. • bury your gays: this book introduces two sapphic characters and brutally murders them both. One of them on the page she's introduced in. I HATEDD THIS. It really doesn't sit well with me when authors just introduce gay characters to kill them. Their sexuality didn't even have a point on page, so it just feels kinda problematic to only introduce them as queer because you're going to kill them. Bury your gays is such an insidious trope • the ending: the ending of this book was super open-ended and ambiguous which I really didn't like. I HATE ambiguous endings so of course I wasn't really feeling it here either. “They were paragons of self-sacrificing womanhood. Like, ‘I’m starving to death! Here, eat my only bakery bun!’ ‘I can’t walk, I’m paralyzed, but still I see the bright side of life, happy happy!’ A Little Princess and Pollyanna, let me tell you, they are selling you a pack of ugly lies.” Unfortunately this book just didn't stick for me. E. Lockhart doesn't click with me, I think. I found lots of this so boring and honestly .. pointless. The twists were predictable and I felt like I've read about these characters before. Nothing really stood out to me as extremely unique and impressive I just felt bleh the whole way through. Thankyou to the publisher for sending me an arc in exchange for my honest review

i’m really not sure how to feel about this

A thrilling mystery with too many twists to count. Slowly you learn more about Jules past, and in doing so receive answers to a multitude of mysteries!

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. ***I acquired this book from Netgalley

Wow, Motherfucker of a book! Entschuldigt bitte meine Wortwahl aber auch einige Tage (wenn nicht sogar Wochen) nach dem Lesen verspüre ich immer noch großes Erstaunen und unermessliche Begeisterung, wenn ich an Bad Girls denke. Ich habe eine Story a la Pretty Little Liars erwartet und wurde in dieser Hinsicht nicht enttäuscht. Vielmehr wurde ich noch einmal begeistert, meine Erwartungen übertroffen. Bad Girls ist nicht nur eine seichte Geschichte mit Thrillerelementen sondern ein gut konstruiertes Buch, das es schafft, den Leser mehr als einmal zu verwirren und immer wieder im Dunkeln tappen zu lassen. Jule würde ich dabei nicht nur als eine unglaublich vielschichte Protagonistin beschreiben sondern auch als jemand, deren Erzählung man nicht besonders gut vertrauen kann. Sie lügt nicht aber verschleiert die Wahrheit so geschickt, dass man erst Stück für Stück neue Seiten an ihr entdeckt. Dabei ist sie jedoch niemand, den man sympathisch findet und das muss auch gar nicht. Das Buch lebt vielmehr davon, dass man es nicht tut. Was mich zu Beginn des Buches am meisten überrascht hat und was ich rückblickend auch am genialsten and ist, dass das Buch einen besonderen Aufbau hat, den ich in dieser Form soweit ich mich erinnere auch noch nicht gelesen habe. Das Buch fängt mit dem letzten Kapitel an und arbeitet sich chronologisch in der Geschichte an den Anfang. Dabei endet jedes Kapitel folglich da, wo das Kapitel, das vorher gelesen wurde angefangen hat. So rekonstruiert sich alles Puzzleteil für Puzzleteil für den Leser und ich hatte dabei nicht nur Spaß sondern wurde auch noch enorm beeindruckt. Mir fiel dann später auf, dass die Geschichte anders herum erzählt vermutlich überhaupt keinen Reiz hätte, was alles noch einmal genialer macht. Von mir gibt es für Bad Girls eine absolute Leseempfehlung. Das Buch ist ein Pageturner, den man vor dem Ende nicht mehr aus der Hand legen will. Es überzeugt durch eine nicht unbedingt sympathische aber geheimnisvolle Protagonistin und einen ganz besonderen Aufbau, der für mich noch einmal 1000x mehr aus der ohnehin schon genialen Geschichte geholt hat. Unbedingt lesen!

I went into reading this book not knowing what the hell I was getting myself into because that description gave me nothing which in this case was good! Although I did not like the ending (I feel like I needed more explanation) I have to give kudos to the author for sucking me into the story. I had to know what the hell was happening and what had caused Jule down this path. The story starts off as one big lie and little by little you get the truth. If a book can get me to yell "WTF!" or try to analyze the character, then it did a good job in my book. Again, though I didn't like that ending that is the ONLY thing I really didn't like.

3.5/5 ⭐️ I expected this book to be about two orphans running away, but boy was I wrong. The whole timeline has confused me completely throughout. I hate Forrest so much, he’s so annoying and toxic.

** spoiler alert ** E. Lockhart ist die Autorin von „We were liars“, einem Buch, das ich wirklich außergewöhnlich fand. Und so war ich sehr gespannt, wie wohl ihr zweites Werk aussehen würde. Es beginnt ziemlich spannend. Wir treffen auf Jule, die sich offenbar in einer auf den ersten Blick sehr privilegierten Situation befindet: ein tolles Hotel, Cocktails, viel Geld – doch nach einer Begegnung mit einem Gast wir schnell klar, dass sie sich auf der Fluch befindet. Nun geht es rückwärts durch die Zeit und wir erfahren nach und nach ein wenig mehr über ihre Geschichte, die allerdings stets etwas undurchsichtig bleibt und Rätsel aufgibt. Doch je weiter ich las, umso stärker erinnerte mich die Konstruktion an „Der talentierte Mr. Ripley“ von Patricia Highsmith und umso größer wurde meine Enttäuschung. Es waren nicht nur „Inspirationen“, wie die Autorin in einem Nachwort erklärt, die Story ist zu 80% die gleiche – bis auf dass die Charaktere weiblich sind. Im Gegensatz zu Highsmith gelingt es Lockhart leider nicht, faszinierende und tiefgründige Figuren zu schaffen. Wir erfahren nie genug über Imogene und Jule, um ihr Handeln nachvollziehen zu können. Ihre Hintergründe und Motive werden lediglich angedeutet. Es war mir eigentlich ziemlich egal, was mit beiden am Schluss passierte. „Genuine Fraud“ war eine herbe Enttäuschung. Greift lieber zu Highsmith, falls ihr deren Roman noch nicht kennt.

it was an interesting plot idea and the story was good but the execution of it could've been so much better. there wasn't a problem that needed solving so it read kind of like an indie film with no conflicts, just her story laid out for us to read in a semi confusing order

It’s a good book don’t get me wrong but it isn’t a cannot put down book. It’s okay, but it is possible to get into a reading slump cause of this book. It’s a reverse mystery about a murder. Okay not E. Lockhart’s best work.

It was definitely different and I did like it but I wanted more I guess, like a stated reason why beyond what the reader assumes/interprets

i’ve never read a book that was written this way. super interesting. i still have a lot of questions

Don't let the star rating foul you, this is a really great book! I definetly enjoyed it, especially because it changes from the classic chronological order of storytelling. The only little downside that makes me rate it 3.5/5 is the fact that I've read We Were Liars before so I already knew what to expect from this author and it took away from my full enjoyment of it. But if you're looking for an easy read and something to get you out of a reading slump, I definetly recommend it!

3.5

actually loved this book. the plot was decent but the whole concept was astonishing!!

I LOVED this book. It was so crazy to be reading backwards essentially. You start this book in present time and then work backwards to figure out what is actually happening. It was not a predictable mystery at all and I loved the thrill of reading it. I highly recommend this book and any of E Lockharts work

** spoiler alert ** è stato difficile scegliere un rating per questo libro, perché non è un libro che si legge spesso. La storia è molto particolare, visto che parte da un giorno e torna indietro nel tempo, ogni capitolo fa un salto più nel passato. La protagonista è inaspettata, pensavo davvero che fosse una specie di spia. E invece a ogni salto indietro nel tempo mi sentivo imbrogliata, ogni volta capivo di essere cascata nelle sue bugie. L'omicidio però non è stato molto inaspettato, ho letto "Il talento di Mr Ripley" e visto il film, e ho riconosciuto subito la storia. L'omicidio si svolge quasi uguale, anche la scena dei vestiti e il fatto che lei si finge un'amica sono presi da quel libro, così come la sua possibilità alla fine di cambiare identità e quindi di andarsene libera. è molto interessante vedere come la protagonista cerchi di nascondere gli omicidi in fretta, e di come reagisca ai problemi. A leggere questo libro mi sono sentita a tratti disgustata quando si entrava nella mente di Jule, e questa sensazione a volte ha un po' rovinato la lettura. In generale però è stato un libro molto interessante, e consiglio davvero di leggerlo perché non penso di aver mai trovato una lettura di questo tipo prima.

As with we were liars, I wasn't sure whether to rate this 2 or 3 stars. I did prefer the writing style for this one, but was more unsatisfied with the ending. It just kind of left me feeling meh, that's really the ending? I did like the idea of the chapters going backwards, but then that final chapter was disappointing.