Review: Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart

Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart

Release Date: September 5^th, 2017

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Type: Young Adult Thriller

Pages: 264

Summary: Imogen is a runaway heiress, an orphan, a cook, and a cheat.

Jule is a fighter, a social chameleon, and an athlete.

An intense friendship. A disappearance. A murder, or maybe two.

A bad romance, or maybe three.

Blunt objects, disguises, blood, and chocolate. The American dream, superheroes, spies, and villains.

A girl who refuses to give people what they want from her.

A girl who refuses to be the person she once was.

My Review:

This review may not make a whole lot of sense because Genuine Fraud broke my brain. I don't know what I expected, but it was not this brilliant book. Not that I didn't think it would be fantastic as E Lockhart books are always, but somehow in my hype to read this I missed that it was a thriller.

Set the scene, me at Bookcon 2017 in NYC. One of the four authors I got a ticket to meet was none other than E. Lockhart and at her signing she gave away make up bags with the quote, “She became the kind of woman it would be a great mistake to underestimate” (I love this bag and I use it for art supplies and carry it everywhere) and from that I knew that this would be my kinda book! If there's something more than strong females that I love it's strong females who rock it! And I knew Jule would be a character after my own heart.

Me and E. Lockhart at BookCon 2017!

However, Jule is NOT WHAT I EXPECTED. She is wickedly talented and unfortunately I cannot say more than that because I can't spoil it for you. This book sucker punched me in the gut with the plot twists and turns. Every time I got to one of these points I had to stop reading and say to myself, “wait wait wait stop what did you just read. That did not just say that.” But it did! And I'd read even faster!

The genius in this book is that there are 2 ways to read it which I didn't realize until 3/4 of the way through. There's obviously the traditional way page 1 to page 264, the other way is numerically by chapter number which makes the book go chronologically. I recommend doing it this way AFTER you read front to back. Reading it the way Lockhart has it gives you the MAXIMUM effect of shock, reading it by chapter number after makes you realize how smart the book is!

I know that I haven't actually said much, but I hope it was enough to convince you to read this amazing, heart stopping novel! Earlier I mentioned meeting E. Lockhart at BookCon 2017. Genuine Fraud was one of the most sought after ARCs and the line to get one had at least a couple hundred in it! Meeting E. Lockhart was a great experience, she is incredibly kind and signed my copy of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks! 

~Laura!