Genuine Fraud is so Lockhart. I suppose it’s a psychological thriller, something I tend to steer clear of these days but I gave it a go because I just love Lockhart’s writing style. It does also manage to avoid some of the cliches of the genre too.
Imogen Sokoloff was the type of girl teachers never thought worked to her full potential. The type of girl who blew off studying and yet filled her favorite books with sticky notes.
Jule is your ultimate unreliable narrator, reinventing herself as she hides from something in her past. She misses her friends Imogen and Paolo, yet she’s in a Mexican resort pretending to be Imogen. What is going on?
Ultimately, nothing is too surprising but I liked the journey to get there, with all the little lies and truths knitting together through flashbacks. These flashbacks get older the further back they go and you start to realise how far from the truth Jule has strayed.
Jule believed that the more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle. She believed that the best way to avoid having your heart broken was to pretend you don’t have one. She believed that the way you speak is often more important than anything you have to say.
In true Lockhart style, there’s plenty of rich East Coast girls and trips to Martha’s Vineyard. It seems surprisingly easy for Jule to pass herself off as Imogen, she has access to just enough to path the way for her fraud. I liked Jule’s origin story, the idea that she is the superhero or action hero in her own story. She so doesn’t want to be who she once was, that she creates her own narrative.
Remember when “new adult” was a thing? Well if it still is a thing, Genuine Fraud would fall firmly into it. The characters are college age and they have independence. The girls are orphans but it’s not done just to get rid of the parental figures.
They lived their lives surrounded by all that glitter and neon, happily assuming that small, cute women were harmless.
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Book Source: Purchased