As a Chinese immigrant living in US, Ivy is a young child and her family is poor. Her grandma teaches her ways to survive and when they would go to garage sales while her grandma would barter down the price, Ivy would quickly hide small things in her pants.
Ivy growing up was always envious of those who were born of wealth and class. She tried to fit in with them and her family depended on her to marry well in order to provide. To her astonishment a senators son that she knew when she was little has taken interest in her.
Ivy, thinks she is getting everything she ever wanted…however, life is never that simple.

This was a slow burn book, however I did enjoy the end. It was unexpected and disheartening though.

This book was super hyped up on social media so I really wanted to read it for myself, sadly I did not finish it and was unimpressed- might revisit at a later time.

brilliant and propulsive. this is one of the best books i've read all year, and i'm so glad i picked it up. ivy's voice is so singular and so compelling, and i was so fascinated watching her spiral into obsession throughout the course of this book. a lot of reviews for this book complain about how unlikeable she is, but honestly i loved her lol. she was so interesting to read about and to get in the mind of and i just loved watching her story unfold. it's not really Mysterious, moreso full of dread and paranoia, but i loved that. it was so much fun watching this story play out, and the writing was incredible — lush and observant and so, so easy to get lost in. highly recommend this one.

Ivy Lin, a Chinese immigrant, spends her entire life crafting a self image appealing to high society. She longs to be rich, privileged, and held in high esteem. She enters a relationship with a childhood crush, Gideon, (the elusive golden boy), and is constantly trying to please him and his high society family. Years later, her carefully-assembled life starts to fall apart as her past comes back to haunt her. This book has so much character detail that you feel like a fly on the wall in their lives. Ivy is the perfect anti-hero, and you find yourself simultaneously loving and hating her. the twists in this book were so satisfying!

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC digital copy. I have not been compensated for my opinion and this is an honest review.

Unfortunately, I was unable to finish reading this ARC digital copy before needing to switch to other books that were being archived. The book is no longer on my Goodreads "want to read" list, but I will update my review to reflect an updated opinion if I decide to finish at a later date.

Decent book. Wasn't quite sure where it was going. Definitely didn't give the suspense that the blurb said.

This is my first book by Susie Yang. Thanks, NetGalley for the ARC though I must admit I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. I found this in the Mystery & Thriller section but have trouble classifying it as such. It does have some mystery but is more of a class-based, coming of age story centered around young Ivy. I prefer thrillers but am so glad I got the chance e to read this, as the writing is superb!! I’d say this is more of a familial drama type book but again, it gets so deep at times that there is an air of suspense. Genre aside, it’s a wonderful read. For a teen or even a grown woman like myself. I look forward to Ms Yang’s next book😁

This was a unique story. I had a hard time getting into the book but after a few chapters it started to pick up. It is an exploration of a fairly unlikeable character trying to chase her version of the American dream. While I thought this was going to be a thriller it is not that, while twisty it more just a fiction book. Overall I ended up enjoying the story while not enjoying the character.

This was an interesting book and one that I now own in hardcover - I loved seeing it as a BOTM and Read with Jenna pick. I look forward to reading more from Susie Yang in the future.

As a white female I am processing this book. I don’t feel it is my right to review it. But I know I enjoyed reading it and with the right content warnings I would recommend it to others.

This story is centered around an Asian immigrant family from China and their daughter Ivy Lin who develops friends and acquaintances with the kids in her neighborhood and school. She attempts to sneak around with her friends, due to her interest in a boy and wanting to fit into the group of kids. Her parents embarrass her when they find out and she is sent to China for the summer to see family. She has been denied many of the typical “luxuries” of a middle class American family and her grandmother has taught her how to be a successful thief. They would steal objects that were seen as items that white Americans didn’t even see. Then as an adult, she meets the boy, now man, who she yearned for as a young girl. She sets her sights on marrying him.
I enjoyed the story for the most part. I loved the way Ivy is forced to see her own presumptions about her family and their successes and failures. I didn’t really find myself rooting for Ivy and didn’t really care that much about the characters. The protagonist and supporting characters were just flat or unlikeable to me. The story was compelling enough that I finished it even though some of the major plot points became obvious earlier in the story.
This may have just been wrong book for me or wrong timing for it. This is likely to be others’ favorite trope. So I would recommend it to certain readers.

#WhiteIvy #Netgalley #SimonandSchuster

3.4 - sometimes a little too meandering, and I kept expecting the plot twists to go differently (and I feel like my ideas would have worked better... )

Susie Yang's novel White Ivy is a book that took me awhile to get a firm grasp on and left me feeling a bit befuddled every time I set it down because I couldn't get past the main character Ivy's personality, feelings, and actions. To put it quite frankly, I despised her. It wasn't until I reached this novel's shocking twist ending that I realized this was Yang's point all along and that my feelings towards Ivy were not unwarranted. I wasn't crazy, I wasn't cruel, I wasn't biased ... I was supposed to hate Ivy because she truly is a horrible person. Armed with this knowledge, I felt better equipped to tackle my feelings towards this literary debut about a girl from a Chinese immigrant family coming of age in 1990s America, and who, as an adult, finds herself torn between two very different men from her past.

Ivy Lin has had a difficult childhood. All she ever wanted is to fit in with the more polished and privileged kids at her school, but she sticks out like a sore thumb. Not only is Ivy different from everyone else due to her immigrant family's traditions and customs, but she is also a thief - an unsavory characteristic she picked up from her grandmother at an early age. By stealing, Ivy can build a life for herself that looks entirely different than the one in which she was born and raised. Perhaps if she can just look the part, she might be able to assimilate into the glittering world of Gideon Speyer, her crush, who lives a life Ivy can only dream of but never hope to attain.

However, just when Ivy catches Gideon's eye, the circumstances of her life change, setting her off on a different course and eventually into the arms of bad boy Roux Roman, a guy who sees right through Ivy's carefully crafted façade and all of her devious schemes. As Ivy and Roux enter into a clandestine relationship, Ivy has no idea that she is entangling herself into a web that will come back to haunt her many years later. Because Ivy and Gideon's paths will cross again, but so will Ivy and Roux's, leaving her torn between the guy she has always wanted and the one she knows she deserves.

Told in five parts, White Ivy examines Ivy Lin throughout time, from child to adulthood, showing how she navigates the world with selfish intentions and no moral compass. More literary fiction than thriller, as it is sometimes billed, White Ivy primarily serves as a character study of a self-indulgent and not entirely clever girl, hellbent on getting what she wants out of life at all costs.

White Ivy shines a spotlight on the varying backgrounds that people come from, and shows the consequences, both good and bad, of individuals with different ideas of family values, power, and privilege mingling and melding. It highlights the desperation that people carry to be seen, loved, and heard, and demonstrates how this craving of acknowledgement manifests itself in our lives and relationships.

On the other hand, White Ivy often failed to connect with me and I felt rather removed when reading this novel. It is apparent from this story that Ivy does not let other people in, but this tactic also applies to the reader. Ivy is a master manipulator, but you may not realize that while reading this book, thus leaving you confused when her words and actions don't match, and you find yourself disliking her more and more, but unable to quite put your finger on the why.

White Ivy is not an entirely enjoyable reading experience, but it is a thought-provoking one which will appeal primarily those who like to dissect characters' motives and look for hidden meanings.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read and review this book. While this title is no longer within the realm of my current reading interests I appreciate the opportunity in receiving an ARC.

I found this book intriguing at the beginning, but as Ivy grew up she became very unlikeable. I quickly lost interest and even the surprise at the end wasn’t enough to make it worth while.

Actual rating: 3.5/5

While White Ivy started off strong for me, like many other readers, I was underwhelmed by the latter half of the book. White Ivy certainly tackles complex topics with nuance and skill, but the plot twists leading up to the climax and end of the novel failed to impact me as much as they could have if I was more emotionally invested in the characters aside from Ivy.

I can’t believe I never gave feedback on this book. I absolutely loved it. Beautifully written with a wild twist at the end, this book stayed with me for a long time after the last page.

An amazing narrator paired with a general sense of unease and anticipation made me unable to stop listening to this book! A dark exploration of class and race, it was riveting!

I had a great time reading White Ivy. It definitely reads like a movie. While some of the twists could be spotted from a mile away, the author manages to make this novel fresh and insanely bingeable. It’s always fun to read a novel that looks inside “high society” and this is no exception.

All of the characters are skillfully written exactly as intended- we root for Ivy even though she’s a narcissistic social climber, we want to slap Gideon for being so aloof (and Ivy for putting up with it), and Sylvia is delightfully horrible. I enjoyed Ivy's family and their dynamics the most.

There are no huge surprises here, Yang scatters enough breadcrumbs for us to see what’s coming up, but the writing is seamless and the book makes for a perfect escape read.

White Ivy is a suspenseful novel with a protagonist who is intentionally portrayed as an anti-heroine. It begins “Ivy Lin was a thief but you would never know it to look at her.” In classic anti-heroism style, Ivy has few redeeming qualities at the beginning of the novel, and although she experiences growth and revelation, she never comes around morally. She steals, lies, prostitutes herself, and even treats her own body like a garbage dump. So the question is: How do we feel about detestable protagonists? Such a structure certainly demands tolerance from a reader and some appreciation for its departure from what we’ve been raised on—characters who transition over the course of a novel and in so doing deliver a universal message of hope or possibility.

Can we enjoy novels with protagonists we don’t like? There are plenty of male anti-heroes, the Humbert Humberts of the world, detestable protagonists we end up rooting for despite their faults. The fact is the reading public is especially hard on female characters who do not adhere to stereotype, who are not kind and thoughtful and domestic, or do not at least come around to these attributes by novel’s end. Because of this, one can hold White Ivy up as a work of art that challenges societal bias. It receives five stars on that measure, if only three stars on the whole.

On the other hand, the jacket copy describes the novel as one that offers “sharp insights into the immigrant experience.” That statement is pure marketing and potentially exploitive. Ivy Lin is a very complex individual as are the members of her family. One would hate to think that Susie Yang wrote Ivy Lin’s character or the Lin family in general to be representative of Chinese Americans. If that is the case, it paints an extremely negative and troubling picture.

In addition, for a story primarily set in Boston and fictitious towns surrounding the city, it fails to offer authentic details. In fact, there are several erroneous details, creating lapses in credibility that trip up the reader and diminish her eagerness to go along with the narrator on a journey that already demands she withhold judgement on Ivy Lin’s character. For example, bad winter weather usually comes in from the west, not the north, and not from the Atlantic; when leaving Boston one does not drive through upstate New York in order to get to New Jersey; there is no block on Beacon Hill where there are rows of identical front doors; a state senator works in Boston and not in Washington. While Yang writes well and employs fine use of metaphor, occasional poor grammar and word choice threaten to startle the reader from the fictive dream she is working hard to establish.

Ivy Lin grows up in a poor family but attends a private school in Massachusetts on account of her father working there. It is at this school that she develops a crush on Gideon Speyer. After lying to her parents in order to attend a slumber party at his home, Ivy is sent to stay with relatives in China for the summer, and the family moves to New Jersey while she is out of the country. Lin goes on to attend an unnamed women’s college outside of Boston where she reconnects with the Speyer family and drama ensues.

The early chapters of this novel are enjoyable. The relationship Ivy shares with her grandmother is great, as are her travels and the relationships she makes that summer as a young teen in China. The choices she makes to fit in and survive in her family seem plausible. If this is the description of the immigrant experience Yang is going for, then it’s laudable. The second half of the novel, however, is where plot twists enter around the superficially and simplistically wrought Speyer family and the story succumbs to a downward spiral of baseness.

White Ivy is entertaining insofar as it is extremely original. The conclusion left this reader without a sense of hope, depressed over an ending that rewards self-centered opportunism. The final scene is one where Ivy faces off against Gideon’s sister, Silvia Speyer, in a contest of innuendo between two equally loathsome human beings. However, maybe that was the point. The lesson for the reader might be in the irony—that if you are looking for a real hero, the most self-aware and honest character in this novel is the one you would have least expected.