Title: Genuine Fraud
Author: E. Lockhart
Publisher: Ember
Length: 262
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Have you ever wanted to be someone else?
Imogen lives at the Playa Grande Resort in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. She spends her days working out in the hotel gym and telling other guests about how she was forced out of Stanford.
But Imogen isn't really Imogen. She's Jule. And she's on the run from something. Or someone.
Which means...where is the real Imogen?
Rewind: Jule and Imogen are the closest of friends. Obsessed with each other, even. Imogen is an orphan, an heiress; she and Jule spend a summer together in a house on Martha's Vineyard, sharing secrets they'd never reveal to another soul.
But that was months ago. Where is Immie now? And why is Jule using her name?
I read E. Lockhart's debut release novel, We were Liars, back in 2014 and utterly loved the speculative fiction writing style. So, when this newest release reached my radar, I was excited to dive back into Lockhart's brain. I wouldn’t claim I had high hopes to say, but with We were Liars being one of my top recommendations to other readers, I certainly had some expectations going in. Mostly I was expecting to enjoy the read. This is not to say I didn’t; once I got past my initial confusion (more on that in a second) I found the story to be wildly underwhelming. It was a book. Yep, it was definitely a book and that’s about all I came out thinking.
One Step Forward…
The most interesting thing about this book also happens to be the most confusing part. The pattern in which the plot line unfolds-while unique-is difficult to grasp for about the first half dozen or so chapters. The best way to describe the narrative pattern is “one step forward, two steps back”. Each chapter covers the course of a week with the first chapter being the natural end of the storyline. As the chapters go, you bounce back to the weeks before. Confusing, right? You probably can’t even tell from my description how the storyline plays out. Let me make it a little clearer: Chapter 1(actually labelled 18 because the story moves backwards) takes place from Sunday to Saturday in the third week of June 2017. Chapter 2 (17) then takes place from Sunday to Saturday in the last week of April 2017, seven weeks prior. We keep jumping like this all the way until the final chapter (19) which throws us back to just after the end of the first chapter (18).
Now, I have to confess something to you all, I have the terrible reader habit of not reading the chapter titles. I know, I know, sacrilege! In my defense, I usually am so invested in what is occurring in the plot that I jump right into the first paragraph, but in this case it may have saved me a little headache and confusion.
Regardless of my reading faux pas, When you don’t know anything about the characters, their lives, or the story in the slightest, this story structure is still immensely confusing. I find the style interesting, but for a story that already holds a lot of deception, mystery, and intrigue, I think it causes unnecessary complexity. Even when told in the proper order of events, the story would be engaging. I found the structure to be a hinderance rather than an additive to the overall reading experience. Add in the fact that telling this narrative backwards eliminates a lot of the mystery/tension of the events and it really causes the story to flop. If someone were to take the style and apply it to a different genre, say Romance-a la Last Five Years- I think it would kill (pun kind of intended). This just was not the story to tell in this format.
Love to hate or just hatred?
A question with an easy answer. We hate all the characters with straight up hatred. While E. Lockhart is known for writing complex and flawed characters, nothing was provided in the backstory or actual story that made you sympathize or understand the poor choices of any of these characters. Not to keep comparing, but in We were Liars, though deeply flawed and relatively disconnected from the average life experiences, the depth that Lockhart added to those characters made motivation very clear even in the poor choices. As readers, we understood where they stood and why they were making those choices despite us knowing they were not good ones. Here, the characters, even our MC, Jule, feels completely one dimensional. Her motivations are unclear, her thoughts and feelings are only vaguely hinted at, and every one of her choices are so far out of line.
If the point of the story was to dislike Jule, I would be into that, except I don’t believe that was the intention. I come to this conclusion because if I were to write a story with an intentionally unlikeable MC I would make every side character likeable in juxtaposition. This is not the case here. The side characters are equally as one dimensional and hate-able as Jule. I can confidently say I did not actually like a single character in this novel. Which, in turn, made it kind of hard to enjoy reading.
Props Where They are Due
Despite the final product falling short, the concept presented here was ambitious and unique. It fascinates me when authors play around with time structure in their stories. While creating easy intrigue for the reader, it is anything but easy to craft. The time and energy expunged into the story flow alone is massive. E. Lockhart is a talented writer for this feat alone. Do I wish the execution was better? Sure. But kudos regardless.
Although I wouldn’t recommend reading this book, if you have, I would love to know your thoughts! Did you also struggle with the timeline of events? Who was your least favorite of the bad, bad characters? Do you think you would have fallen for Jule’s BS? Let me know!
Until next time,
Keep wondering and stay wandering.
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