I volunteered to read this book, through netgalley in exchange, for an honest review. This book is well written and the characters are described well. The pacing of this story is good. The characters relationships are good. I enjoyed Roux and Ivy's characters. This is my first Susie Yang book and I will read more books by this author in the future. This book will be in stores on November 3rd, 2020 for $26.00 (USD).

Ivy is left with her grandmother in China when her parents moved to the US. Her grandmother taught her many things, including how to steal. At 14, Ivy falls in love with Gideon, a boy in her exclusive school, and there starts her obsession. She is a character that you will sometimes like, often hate. She really doesn’t care who she hurts, as long as she gets her way.

This book is heavily character driven, not really sure I loved any characters. Felt sympathy and empathy for sure. The story was a little slow in parts for me, but the writing and character development hooked me and kept me immersed in the story. The author did a wonderful job of showing the plight of Ivy’s parents, and how it shaped Ivy and her brother. Ivy wanted something, and went after it at all costs. She went after what she wanted, not necessarily what she needed. Even though the ending was somewhat predictable, with a few twists added in, the story worked and flowed easily. Loved the dynamics of the Both families portrayed, and the cast of secondary characters doesn’t disappoint. What a debut! Appropriate Title!

Thanks to Ms. Yang, Simon and Schuster and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for an egalley of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I really enjoyed White Ivy by debut author Susie Yang. It is a coming of-age novel centering around Ivy, a young Chinese woman who never quite knows what she wants. She dreams of a "perfect" life.
She begins a relationship with a boy that she grew up having a crush on and does not want to let go.
There are a few turns in the story that left me surprised and wanting to continue reading to find out what happens.

Ivy Lin's grandmother taught her how to steal things from the local Goodwill store and from yard sales. As Ivy got older, and her strict parents didn't allow her to have the things other teenage girls had, Ivy moved on to shoplifting from the local Kmart. Ivy wanted to be rich, and fit in with all of the white girls at her school. and she had a huge crush on the local golden boy, Gideon Speyer. After her mom discovered her secrets, she was sent to China for a summer to stay with relatives, and when she came back, she discovered that the family had moved to a different state. Ivy continued to act out, and it didn't seem like she would ever settle down and become someone her parents would be proud of. Years later, Ivy bumps into Gideon's sister and she sets the two of them up. This time Ivy is determined that she will not lose sight of her dreams of having it all, no matter the cost.

I thought I would enjoy this more than I did. Ivy was completely unlikable throughout the entire book, and Gideon's character just felt very one dimensional. The story seemed to drag at times. It wasn't terrible, it just wasn't great.

82/100. This is another “not-quite” thriller. The story follows Ivy, a Chinese American in pursuit of the American dream. In many ways it is a coming of age story, and it takes a dark turn in the second half. Although Ivy’s worst qualities are explored in this novel, I found myself rooting for her anyway, as I could always understand where she was coming from. I was engrossed in this novel and I had trouble putting it down. I received a complimentary copy from the publisher through Netgalley.

The cover, the title, the story… it’s all amazing. White Ivy by Susie Yang is a book that you won’t be able to put down. I cannot believe this is a debut novel! I applaud Susie’s incredible talent!

Check it out:

Ivy Lin is a thief and a liar—but you’d never know it by looking at her.

Raised outside of Boston, Ivy’s immigrant grandmother relies on Ivy’s mild appearance for cover as she teaches her granddaughter how to pilfer items from yard sales and second-hand shops. Thieving allows Ivy to accumulate the trappings of a suburban teen—and, most importantly, to attract the attention of Gideon Speyer, the golden boy of a wealthy political family. But when Ivy’s mother discovers her trespasses, punishment is swift and Ivy is sent to China, and her dream instantly evaporates.

Years later, Ivy has grown into a poised yet restless young woman, haunted by her conflicting feelings about her upbringing and her family. Back in Boston, when Ivy bumps into Sylvia Speyer, Gideon’s sister, a reconnection with Gideon seems not only inevitable—it feels like fate.

Slowly, Ivy sinks her claws into Gideon and the entire Speyer clan by attending fancy dinners, and weekend getaways to the cape. But just as Ivy is about to have everything she’s ever wanted, a ghost from her past resurfaces, threatening the nearly perfect life she’s worked so hard to build.

Filled with surprising twists and a nuanced exploration of class and race, White Ivy is a glimpse into the dark side of a woman who yearns for success at any cost.

I can’t say I particularly liked Ivy, but I was curious about her story and experiences. The story is slow to unfold but definitely picks up the pace and the more I read, the more I got into it.

Don’t miss this one! Get it here on November 3.

Wow what a book. Ivy comes from a Chinese-American family and uses her guile and wits to get to where she wants to be. This book was a bit strange with everything happening and I completely did not expect the ending. Ivy reminded me a bit of Emily in Revenge. I loved Ivy's relationships with her mother, and grandmother and how interesting it was to see the world view from different generations. I loved Roux - he was dangerously sexy whereas Gideon certainly was a wet blanket. A really interesting book and definitely not what I expected.

From prizewinning Chinese American author Susie Yang, this dazzling coming-of-age novel about a young woman’s dark obsession with her privileged classmate offers sharp insights into the immigrant experience.

Ivy Lin is a thief and a liar—but you’d never know it by looking at her.

Raised outside of Boston, Ivy’s immigrant grandmother relies on Ivy’s mild appearance for cover as she teaches her granddaughter how to pilfer items from yard sales and second-hand shops. Thieving allows Ivy to accumulate the trappings of a suburban teen—and, most importantly, to attract the attention of Gideon Speyer, the golden boy of a wealthy political family. But when Ivy’s mother discovers her trespasses, punishment is swift and Ivy is sent to China, and her dream instantly evaporates.

Years later, Ivy has grown into a poised yet restless young woman, haunted by her conflicting feelings about her upbringing and her family. Back in Boston, when Ivy bumps into Sylvia Speyer, Gideon’s sister, a reconnection with Gideon seems not only inevitable—it feels like fate.

Slowly, Ivy sinks her claws into Gideon and the entire Speyer clan by attending fancy dinners, and weekend getaways to the cape. But just as Ivy is about to have everything she’s ever wanted, a ghost from her past resurfaces, threatening the nearly perfect life she’s worked so hard to build.

Filled with surprising twists and a nuanced exploration of class and race, White Ivy is a glimpse into the dark side of a woman who yearns for success at any cost.

White Ivy was a five star read for me. It tells the story of Ivy, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, who falls hard for her waspy classmate . She is cunning and manipulative. This was a fabulous debut with great writing, unlikable characters, and a page turning plot.

n a stunning debut @susieyang writes a full portrait of Ivy Yang, a Chinese Immigrant, who is equally obsessed with a classmate as well as obsessed with living the life of a perfect American teenager. She will do what it takes to live this life even if it includes lying and stealing. Gideon is the golden boy and the focus of her obsession, but after one giant miscalculation on her part the punishment is quick. She is being sent to China for the summer.

She comes back to America and spends the next years completing her degree and living a respectable life and then as fate happens she runs into Sylvia, Gideon’s sister snd he is suddenly back into her life. Her perfect life is upon her. Fancy brunches, long dinners, weekends at the cape until a visit from her past threatens to unspool all she’s worked so hard to craft together.

There are many shocking twists and turns as Ivy does whatever it takes to get what she wants, no matter the cost. I love a backstory and I definitely feel like you got it with the first part of this book to see why Ivy acted the way she did as an adult. I definitely got some #joyluckclub (one of my favorites) vibes hearing the backstory of her mom and dad as well as her grandma. Albeit, Ivy is a very dark and twisty woman but this is s picture of her immigrant experience and what it means for her to find her place as an American woman and a Chinese daughter.

This book comes out tomorrow. I cannot wait to hear what you all think.
Thank you #netgalley and #simonanschuster for an arc in exchange for an honest review

White Ivy is mysterious and thrilling, and the story is veiled in romance as it follows Ivy Lin’s obsession with Gideon Speyer from childhood, but it is really a story about family, immigrant families in particular. Ivy immigrated from China to the U.S. at a young age to live with her parents, working-class immigrants in pursuit of the American Dream who strictly hold traditional Chinese values. As a result, Ivy struggles to form an identity that complies with both her parents’ expectations and accomplishes her sense of fitting in with American peers.

What I found most compelling and thought-provoking was how Ivy’s every action was either a product or direct rebellion of her upbringing. So many of her life choices were based on whether her parents would disapprove, yet at the same time, many of the values she carries are shaped by those with which she was raised. Author Susie Yang well-captured the complexity of the Asian-American experience, where traditional Eastern values are often difficult to reconcile with Western norms.

As an Asian-American woman myself, Ivy’s idolization of whiteness stood out to me. On multiple occasions, Ivy wished she looked more like her blonde and white peers, and she regularly sought out approval and attention from white men in her romantic relationships. Such idolization of whiteness, and its counterpart, the notion of power imbalance in relationships between Asian women and white men, is not well-represented in many books, so I appreciated the inclusion here.

While I binged the book in a weekend and found myself constantly wondering what was going to happen, I often had no idea what direction the story was going in. Although I found the ending satisfying and well-deserved, I wish how the story unfolded was tied together better.

Susie Yang’s debut novel White Ivy is a layered character study that left me with a lot to think about. I was captivated by the Chinese American protagonist, Ivy Lin. The early chapters about Ivy’s childhood shed light on the factors that shape her, including a three-year separation from her parents, her grandmother’s influence, and a summer trip to China. In her middle school years at a private school, Ivy is exposed to wealth and privilege—a stark contrast to her poor immigrant family’s means—and develops a crush on a privileged classmate, Gideon. But thankfully, this isn’t really a story about Ivy’s obsession with Gideon; when they meet again in adulthood, he remains a rather flat character because of Ivy’s idealization. This is 100% Ivy’s story, and her desperation exudes from every page, making you an intimate witness to her calculating actions, self-doubt, and loneliness. It’s frustrating to watch Ivy’s efforts to blend in to the privileged world she wants to inhabit.

When she reconnects with her mother and grandmother, she gains a new understanding of what they’ve done to survive. I wish that Ivy’s moment of realization had come sooner in the book so that it could’ve been explored more, and would have preferred more of Ivy’s family over a thriller-like subplot. I appreciated that Ivy urges her mother to acknowledge her brother’s depression, and wanted to see more of their sibling relationship. Still, Ivy’s characterization made this a thought-provoking, memorable read.

Wow! This book contains so much, a little of everything - family drama, youth angst, lies, secrets, twists, love and hate. I'm still absorbing all of my thoughts and feelings. I have so many questions that I need to discuss with someone.

If you just started reading, and you hate Ivy, keep going. She's such a complicated character that its difficult to even put it into words. In the end all of the characters are similarly complex, flawed, and human.

FIVE full stars. I'm sure I will be back to add more to this review. I need more time to fully think about everything I just read.

Many, many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced copy in exchange for my unbiased review.

A sharp perspective with layered characters that just doesn't seem to make up for the slow burn of a story.

I had a hard time with this read. I was very impressed with the writing, the direct and unique voice and the layered characters for this debut novel, but I felt that it was too much of a slow burn for me. Throughout the book there was a consistent dark and twisted side that seemed to lurk under this story of Ivy and her obsessive desire to escape from her immigrant history. I had a hard time wanting to unravel Ivy's mind because she was just so unlikable - in fact every character surrounding her was also unlikable so that I felt like I couldn't get a grasp on who I was rooting for or what I was hoping would play out.

Overall, well-written and intriguing but much too slow with characters you just can't - or don't want to - connect with.

White Ivy by Susie Yang is a captivating mystery thriller that is sure to send you on a roller coaster of emotions. The characters are well-written with intriguing backstories that help to make the plot suspenseful and mysterious.

White Ivy by Susie Yang is a complex coming of age story. It started off a bit slow for my liking. The story covered an array of topics including immigration, classism, and racism. The first half of the book read differently than the second half- with the first half being literary fiction and the second half reading slightly like a thriller. The story is dark and twisty and I found Ivy to be destructive and frustrating. This is definitely a character study and Yang poured a lot of time into Ivy. Sadly, I did not enjoy this story as much as I had hoped. I also need to point out the repeated use of the “r” word. The ableism displayed in this book was incredibly troublesome and for that reason alone, I can not recommend this book.

White Ivy is the story of Ivy Lin, who can only be defined as a thief, a liar, and manipulative. Ever since her family immigrated to the United States from China, she has been hyperaware of the differences between the white, upper class people she is surround by and herself. She longs for what they have: the perfect, wealthy, all-American WASP life. And upon growing up and running into Gideon Speyer, her old childhood crush, she sees a way of getting it. I honestly have no idea what genre to place this book in. NetGalley listed it at literary fiction and mystery/thriller. The description promises a thriller--something with twists and turns and characters with secret dark sides. The book itself is more character-driven than plot-driven, which is a feature of literary fiction. But ultimately, I don't think it has enough elements of either to be placed firmly in these genres. It's more just general fiction, which is fine. But it's not what I expected upon picking up this book.

I've seen many reviews praising Yang for her portrayal of the Chinese immigrant experience. I can't speak to how accurate it is since I'm neither Chinese nor an immigrant, but I definitely considered this the most interesting part of the book. Ivy's mother, Nan, and her grandmother, Meifeng, were easily my favorite characters. I liked seeing their processing of adapting to a new country, the ways in which they navigated and manipulated the language barrier, and their interactions with various other characters. Meifeng in particular is a great character. I also found Ivy's feeling of displacement fascinating. No matter where she is, Ivy always feels out of place. She doesn't fit in with the rich, white kids at her New England private school, but she also doesn't feel like she belongs when visiting relatives in China. The only person she ever seems truly comfortable with is Roux, a Romanian immigrant who lives in her neighborhood when they're children. Because she feels so displaced, Ivy grasps at anything she can to try to fit in. As a kid, she steals make-up and clothes so she can look like her classmates. As an adult, she hides behind a carefully cultivated image so she can snare Gideon.

Unfortunately, other than these few features, I found it difficult to connect with most of the characters, which is odd because it is a character-driven book. Gideon remains distant and unknowable from the time we meet him until the very end. This makes sense to a certain extent since everything is filtered through Ivy's perspective and that's how she feels about him. But I felt the same way about other characters, including Roux and even Ivy herself. I knew all her vices and insecurities, yet I never felt close to her or invested in her story. It wasn't an issue of her being unlikeable; I love unlikeable characters and actually found myself wishing she was more unlikeable. The description makes her sound like a truly conniving, horrible person; it refers to her "sinking her claws" into Gideon. She's a bit manipulative and she lies a lot, but she's fairly mild other than that. It was kind of disappointing.

My biggest issue with this book is that it is all build-up with no pay-off. The most exciting event happens at the 90% point and is never truly dealt with. This event felt like it should have happened at the halfway point with the rest of the book dealing with the aftermath. Yet it ends up being brushed away with just a few paragraphs. There are so many places where Yang builds tension and hints at dark secrets, but almost none of it comes to anything. This was especially disappointing because the only reason I kept reading was to find out these secrets. There is a "big reveal" about a character at the very end, but I felt it was poorly handled and even verged on a bit offensive. It should have been given far more time than it was, and honestly, Yang could have taken it into so many more interesting directions.

Overall, I went into this book expecting a literary fiction/thriller mix with great twists and a conniving female anti-hero and came out feeling extremely underwhelmed. While Yang is a talented writer and has some great concepts, she couldn't get me invested in the characters or provide an adequate pay-off for everything she built up.

A dark and twisty mesmerizing tale! White Ivy starts out as a coming-of-age story about a young Chinese girl whose childhood is spent being passed between her loving but somewhat immoral grandmother in China and her hardworking, stern parents in Massachusetts. You can imagine what kind of problems this causes in Ivy's personality and moral compass, but just when her life starts to take a dark turn, the story skips ahead to Ivy's working life after college, as she reconnects with a crush from school and his wealthy and politically influential family, as well as other darker influences. Not that anything in this story is black and white, the nuances and subtle flaws of all the character are what makes this book so suspenseful.

I loved this story, it kind of reminded me of the Goldfinch in the way different peoples lives and fates intertwine throughout the years and the dark and light sides of their personalities are revealed. The end was compelling and yet left me wanting to read more. I can't wait to see what Susie Yang will write next!

Well, I DIDN’T see all that coming when I started reading the book about a Chinese immigrant family who moved to Massachusetts. I thought it was going to be a coming of age story, but it’s a lot more than that. Ivy is a very original character. Growing up she learned to steal from her maternal grandmother who started the family career of selling used items on the internet. Ivy does not fit the mold of disciplined, polite Chinese child. She is angry most of the time. She’s extremely unlikable, which made it hard for me to believe that she was accepted as the future member of a WASP family when she married the son. And yet, Yang can pull me into believing the story. She had no moral compass in most of her decisions. And yet, at the end, Yang again gets me to believe that Ivy finally sees the importance of family. Soooo….my next question is what Ivy and Gideon’s future will hold. I learned from all the twists and turns in this story, that what I anticipated was not what I got. I didn’t think I’d like this book, but I was compelled to stay up late to finish reading.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read the debut novel by Susie Yang - 4 stars for a very intriguing book. I'll be looking for more from this author in the future!

Ivy was raised by her grandmother in China when she was very young while her parents immigrated to the US to start their new life. The grandmother introduced Ivy to stealing to get the things that you want or deserve. When they moved to Boston to reunite with their parents, Ivy continued her habit. Her parents had high expectations and Ivy was able to attend an exclusive high school because her dad worked there. There she was introduced to the way the rich people lived and became obsessed with golden boy, Gideon. However, after an indiscretion with an old friend, Ivy's parents sent her to China for the summer and moved the family to NJ while she was gone. Years later, Ivy meets up with Gideon again and it seems that fate is finally shining on Ivy and she will get what she wants. Or will she?

This is a somewhat dark coming of age story as we see the expectations put on Ivy from her family and culture and how she will stop at nothing to get what she thinks she wants. Ivy presents one image to the world - they all see her as a good girl - but her inside turmoil is quite different and dark. The book was wonderfully written - you feel all the circulating emotions in Ivy from a young age and how they have formed who she is, even while she struggles to figure that out herself. The ending was inevitable but still quite surprising.

A very strong debut novel that deserves the buzz it's gathering!