History Literature / GenuineFraud

* InsecureLoveInterest: An interesting example with Jule, who repeatedly pushes Paolo away partly because she feels like she isn't good enough for him (and partly because he's unintentionally a SpannerInTheWorks to her cover story). While Paolo repeatedly reassures her that he likes her and thinks she's an excellent person, the reader eventually learns that [[spoiler: Jule became obsessed with Imogen and snapped when Imogen confronted her, and Jule killed Imogen in the ensuing argument. She also took over Imogen's identity and forged a will in order to gain control of all of Imogen's money, and she killed Brooke for asking too many questions. Needless to say, Jule has good reason to believe she shouldn't be with Paolo.]]

* ProperlyParanoid: [[spoiler: By the end of the novel, ''every single person'' who raises suspicions about Jule ends up having those suspicions validated...whether or not they're still alive to realize it.]]
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Played with between Brooke and Jule; some of Brooke's points fall flat because she doesn't realize that Jule is lying about her background and didn't actually go to Stanford, but her point about Jule basically stalking Imogen is much more valid.

* SureLetsGoWithThat: [[spoiler: How Jule ended up meeting Imogen in the first place. She ran into Imogen's mother Patti, who mistook her for an old school friend of Imogen's, and decided to go along with it.]]

* UnreliableNarrator: Jule, full stop. The story being told in reverse-chronological order means we learn about events before we have the context to know what really happened, and Jule does a lot of her talking in ExactWords. Even in-universe, most of what she says to anyone else is at least partially fabricated.

* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: Jule tends to latch onto people who she perceives as being accepting of her true nature. [[spoiler: She only gets involved with Imogen in the first place because she's being paid to do so, but eventually grows to see Imogen as her best friend, even though Imogen isn't nearly as invested in the relationship as she is.]]

* ISurrenderSuckers: Jule uses this to great effect against Donovan in the opening chapter, when he tries to shake her down for extra money. [[spoiler: She does it again to Noa at the end.]]

** Brooke is particularly standoffish to Jule and eventually confronts her to tell her to stay away from Imogen. But from her perspective, a random person Imogen used to know showed up out of nowhere and started monopolizing Imogen's time and money within days. [[spoiler: And unbeknownst to Brooke, she's absolutely right about Jule being dangerous.]]

* ProperlyParanoid: [[spoiler: By the end of the novel, ''every single person'' who raises suspicions about Jule ends up having those suspicions validated...whether or not they're around to realize it.]]
* RightForTheWrongReasons: Forrest, and, eventually, the police, are convinced that there was foul play involved with Imogen's suicide. It's true, but they both have completely the wrong end of the stick.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: It's repeatedly pointed out throughout the novel that while Jule and Imogen don't look ''that'' similar, they have enough physically in common to pass for each other, especially to people who don't know them. [[spoiler: At the end, it turns out Noa mistakenly thinks that ''Imogen'' killed ''Jule'', when really it's the other way around.]]
* HappilyAdopted: Imogen was adopted at age two after being removed from her biological mother's care.

** Brooke is particularly standoffish to Jule and eventually confronts her to tell her to stay away from Imogen. But from her perspective, a random person Imogen used to know showed up out of nowhere and started living solely off Imogen's money within days. [[spoiler: And unbeknownst to Brooke, she's absolutely right about Jule being dangerous.]]

* LovingAShadow: Deconstructed. Jule has Imogen on such a ridiculously high pedestal that Imogen isn't possibly able to live up to it, nor does she want to, and when Jule is confronted with evidence that Imogen is neither a perfect person nor her best friend, she firmly ignores it because she's unwilling to see Imogen any other way. [[spoiler: When Imogen finally directly confronts Jule about it, Jule snaps and kills Imogen.]]

* MultipleChoicePast: Jule's "origin story". At one point Imogen says it's weird how she keeps changing the details. [[spoiler: The real truth is that her mother died of terminal illness, her father committed suicide, and her neglectful aunt took her in.]]

* UnreliableNarrator: Jule, full stop. Most of what she says to other characters is at least partially fabricated, and even her own inner thoughts are written in such a way that they hide things from the reader until much later.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: [[spoiler: Patti mistakes Jule for an old friend of Imogen's and gets Jule involved in Imogen's life, which eventually gets Imogen murdered.]]

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Jule invents one for herself, in which her parents are horribly murdered, and a woman trains her to be a secret agent from the age of 8. The real version is similarly depressing, although less with the bullets. There's also the fact that [[spoiler: she may have been raped, as it's never confirmed whether she was pulling an IHaveThisFriend when telling the story, or it really happened to another girl.]]

* IHaveThisFriend: When drunk, Jule tells some fellow Culebra runaways about [[spoiler: "a girl she knew" who was raped, and how Jule attacked the rapist.]] She insists it was someone else, but she knows a lot of details, and the woman she's talking to thinks it happened to her. Which interpretation is correct is left ambiguous.
* ISurrenderSuckers: Jule uses this at the end against [[spoiler: Noa, and is successfully able to evade her.]]
* JerkassHasAPoint: Imogen, multiple times. She is at different points very cutting and cruel to Scott and Jule, but [[spoiler: she was totally right that dogfighting is wrong and Scott hurt an animal for money/amusement, and that Jule did basically stalk her.]]
** Brooke is particularly standoffish to Jule and confronts her to tell her to stay away from Imogen, but she's completely right to be suspicious of Jule, even if she doesn't have a complete grasp on why. [[spoiler: Unbeknownst to her, Jule has already murdered Imogen by the time Brooke confronts her, and Brooke herself doesn't make it out of the conversation alive.]]

* MasterOfDisguise: Jule is very adept at disguising herself and adopting new identities.

* AdultFear: Your daughter committing suicide out of nowhere. Also, [[spoiler: sending a violent potential sociopath into your daughter's life without realizing, and never learning that said sociopath murdered your daughter.]]

* WhamLine: When Noa calls Jule [[spoiler: Imogen]], revealing that this entire time the cops have thought [[spoiler: ''Imogen'' killed ''Jule''.]]
* YourCheatingHeart: When Imogen gets tired of a boy, instead of dumping him she'll cheat until he catches on and dumps ''her''.

* ForgottenFirstMeeting: [[spoiler: Jule and Imogen met in ninth grade, but didn't get along particularly well, mostly because their respective guardians were trying to push them together and Imogen wasn't overly interested. Imogen does remember this, but doesn't recognize Jule as the girl she once knew. It helps that Jule's hair was dyed blue in ninth grade.]]

** Brooke is particularly standoffish to Jule and confronts her to tell her to stay away from Imogen, but she's completely right to think that Jule is unstable. [[spoiler: Unbeknownst to her, Jule had already murdered Imogen by the time Brooke confronts her, and Brooke herself doesn't make it out of the conversation alive.]]
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Jule successfully evades arrest and skips town with enough assets to remain on the run indefinitely. Not only that, but the police think she's dead and that Imogen took her place, so they're actually looking for Imogen and not her.]]

* Foreshadowing: It's repeatedly pointed out throughout the novel that Jule and Imogen look similar from a distance. [[spoiler: At the end, it turns out Noa mistakenly thinks that ''Imogen'' killed ''Jule'', when really it's the other way around.]]

* BitchInSheepsClothing: Immie. She love-bombs people initially, and then cold-shoulders them when she gets tired of them or they become inconvenient. Brooke claims she only respects people who don't fall apart after she suddenly dumps them. Jule thinks their relationship is different [[spoiler: but it isn't, which drives Jule to kill her.]]

* DrivenToSuicide: Scott, the boy who cleans Immie's pool, after [[spoiler: he gets deep into debt with a dog-fighting ring, and Immie drops him cold after he begs her for money.]]

* JerkassHasAPoint: Immie, multiple times. She is at different points very cutting and cruel to Scott and Jule, but [[spoiler: she was totally right that dogfighting is wrong and Scott hurt an animal for money/amusement, and that Jule did basically stalk her.]]

* MultipleChoicePast: Jule's "origin story". At one point Immie says it's weird how she keeps changing the details. [[spoiler: The real truth is that her mother died of terminal illness, her father committed suicide, and her neglectful aunt took her in.]]
* NeverSuicide: Immie supposedly jumped into the Thames with her pockets full of stones. Her boyfriend Forrest keeps insisting that maybe she could have been forced to write the suicide note and kidnapped, since her parents are rich and could pay a high ransom (he's grieving, so the FridgeLogic of ransom for a supposedly dead girl doesn't occur to him). Eventually the police give in and send Noa to investigate. [[spoiler: He's right; Jule murdered Immie and forged the note.]]
* RightForTheWrongReasons: Forrest, and, eventually, the police, are convinced that there was foul play involved with Immie's suicide. It's true, but they both have completely the wrong end of the stick.
* TrueCompanions: Immie and Jule. [[spoiler: Except not.]]

* WhamLine: When Noa calls Jule [[spoiler: Imogen]], revealing that this entire time the cops have thought [[spoiler: ''Immie'' killed ''Jule''.]]
* YourCheatingHeart: When Immie gets tired of a boy, instead of dumping him she'll cheat until he catches on and dumps ''her''.

* ActionGirl: Jule is strong from swimming and, although she has no formal training, a pretty good fighter, usually with improvised weapons. [[spoiler: She killed a boy with a shoe, which was why she went on the run.]]

* WhamLine: When Noa calls Jule [[spoiler: Imogen]], revealing that this entire time the cops have thought [[spoiler: ''Immie'' killed ''Jule''.]]

* NeverSuicide: Immie supposedly jumped into the Thames with her pockets full of stones. Her boyfriend Forrest keeps insisting that maybe she could have been forced to write the suicide note and kidnapped, since her parents are rich and could pay a high ransom. Eventually the police give in and send Noa to investigate. [[spoiler: He's right; Jule murdered Immie and forged the note.]]

* NeverSuicide: Immie supposedly jumped into the Thames with her pockets full of stones. Her boyfriend Forrest keeps insisting that maybe she could have been forced to write the note and kidnapped, since her parents are rich. Eventually the police give in and send Noa to investigate. [[spoiler: He's right; Jule murdered Immie and forged the note.]]

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Jule invents one for herself, in which her parents are horribly murdered, and a woman trains her to be a secret agent from the age of 8. The real version is similarly depressing, although less with the bullets. There's also the fact that [[spoiler: she may have been raped, as it's never been confirmed whether she was pulling an IHaveThisFriend when telling the story, or it really happened to another girl.]]

* UnreliableNarrator: Jule, full stop. Most of what she says to other characters is at least partially fabricated, and even her own inner thoughts are written in such a way that they hide things from the reader until much later.