Genuine Fraud (by E. Lockhart)

A gender-swapped, reverse-chronological, young-adult version of The Talented Mr. Ripley.  (Lockhart cites it as one of her influences in the afterword, but that seems disingenuous at best -- it's pretty much the same story.)  The "young adult" part is arguable because the lead character is in her 20s and the book has some fairly violent moments and more mature themes. But it feels young-adulty to me.

The Ripley-esque setup is fun, and I enjoyed some of the revelations at the very end, but I had a couple of issues with it:

1. The Jule character feels really implausible. I was thinking we'd eventually get a stronger backstory that would make it all come together, but that never really happens.  I love a good unreliable narrator (obviously) but some elements of her character felt like a real stretch.

2. The "mystery" is really obvious from the beginning -- there are some minor twists at the end, as I said, but I was expecting to be much more surprised than I was.  I was interested, but not blown away. Maybe that was more of an expectations thing on my part.

3. The relationship between Jule and Imogen never makes any sense from Imogen's point of view, particularly as more is revealed. Paradoxically, Imogen as a character gets more confusing as we find out more about her. As with Jule, I never fully bought Immie as a real person.

All that said, Genuine Fraud has enough Ripley in it to be fun, and I would probably enjoy re-reading it now that I know the full story. It's cleverly constructed and I found some clever, more subtle aha moments; there are probably more to discover.  So maybe in the future I'll give it another try and see what I think upon a second reading.