Author– E Lockhart
Book– Genuine Fraud
Previous Works– We were liars
Publishers– Hot Key Books
Number of Pages– 262
Format– Paperback
Blurb-
The long awaited new novel from E Lockhart, the bestselling author of We Were Liars
Ingredients 25% Heartless, 25% Reinvent, 25% Red, 25% Snake.
From the author of the unforgettable bestseller WE WERE LIARS comes a masterful new psychological suspense novel-the story of a young woman whose diabolical smarts are her ticket into a charmed life. But how many times can someone reinvent themselves?
You be the judge.
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.
Review-
Genuine Fraud by E Lockhart is a story of a Jule, with an origin story that she made for herself, training that she got for herself and a lot of money that did not belong to her. A case of eye- keeping that hurt her to the extent of testing her limits and Jule West Williams became a lot of people.
The book was one hell of a ride as I read it in the initial months of 2018, it was sometimes that made me feel good about the to-be-reviewed pile I have.
I was always skeptic about stories in which teenagers played a major role, I never could imagine someone with raging hormones and stupidity doing something worth writing. But E Lockhart proved me wrong with her flawless flow of words.
Also read-Review Pen: Love Trumps All By Sudarshan Mahabal
Never in those 262 pages, did anything feel off-beat. Every outrageous, unbelievable, or shocking thing Jule was a part of, seemed real. It always seemed like the teenager could do things to such an extent. Such was the narration.
The book is written in different timelines, approximately a few months apart from each other , not following a chronological order.
Following the past and the present, for the revelation of plot lines and bring about the twists. Its well written enough to make it seem like a motion picture, if the reader has a good imaginative brain.
The book is engaging and can be easily completed in a single sitting, as I doubt anyone would be interested in leaving it for a break.
Every time the plot starts to seem a bit confusing, the author introduces a plot reveal and things start making sense again.
Despite the lack of any huge plot reveal in the end, as it was obvious for the reader that there might be this kind of end, but the journey is worth accounting for and that is where I fell for the book.
The characters, there was nothing special about them, nothing like you would fall in love with, Jule was as cold as possible, hiding away everything, and that was somewhat the charm of the book. Making people be hooked to a story whose characters did not intrigue them, but the journey to how they become what they are did.
The cover displays bits of blonde hair, that represents the time when Jule had cut her hair herself, in order to make herself look a bit for like Imogen, making it a perfect setting for the cover.
The title is apt for the book as the plot revolves around Jule whose whole life has been a web of lies, ever since she had been introduced in the book.
The blurb is the kind that makes someone open up the initial pages and read the bits, or download the sample chapters and eventually buy the book.
Ratings-
Cover- 5 stars
Title- 5 stars
Blurb- 5 stars
Plot- 4 stars
Writing and Presentation- 4 star
Overall- 4.6 stars out of 5
The story is narrated back in time, which makes it a hell lot difficult to keep everything in track when you plan to take a break. I had to re-read some parts, rushing back to the previous pages to figure out the where and when.
Overally, the book is worth the read.
Reviewed by- Banaja Prakashini
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