I love a YA thriller and this certainly delivered! It was twisty, angsty, and gossipy - all my favorite things to read even now I'm out of the "YA" age range. This reminded me of One of Us is Lying, Aces, and The Inheritance Games.

The Ivies was a very interesting mystery book that was a little tropey but overall good. I enjoyed the characters and that pretty much none of them were great people which was very fitting for the type of book it was. (Competitive boarding school with a whole bunch of smart, mean girls.) So it only made sense that they were all kind of horrible.

The ending was both predictable and not and I'm still not sure exactly how I feel about it but I think it worked well as well.

The Ivies is a thoroughly juicy, dramatic mystery with a LOT going on. It is a dark and searing look into the cutthroat world of college admissions and the lengths students will go to get into their dream schools. High school students across the board will devour this.

Similar to several books I've read. I liked it enough to finish, but I would not recommend it to anyone.

How far would you go to get into your dream college? This book follows one group of friends who are known as The Ivies, each planning on trying to get into one of the elite schools. When one of them dies in a mysterious manner, all eyes are on the other 3 friends. Anyone who loves mysteries would love to read this book, but seniors who are applying to school, steer clear until after applications are in!

How far would you go to get acceptance into The Ivies?
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College admission is ruthless at Claflin Academy. Just ask The Ivies: five girls who each are gunning for a different Ivy League school. On Early Decision Day Olivia, who has been attached to Penn, gets accepted into Harvard—the school that’s attached to queen bee Avery Montfort. Avery doesn’t get into Harvard and is ready to take her anger out on someone. When another Ivy girl, Emma, owns up to also applying and getting accepted into Harvard, Avery loses it on her at a party and threatens to kill her…Emma is found dead the next morning. But who, besides Avery, had motive to kill her?
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What can I say, I’m l obsessed with private school murder mysteries and Donne delivered. The cutthroat world of college acceptance is not one I’m personally familiar with, but do enjoy reading about the lengths kids (and parents) will go to get accepted into good universities. This YA book was fast-paced and kept me guessing on the killer. Just when I thought I had it figured out, I was thrown for a loop. Grab your copy today!

CW: bullying, death, blackmail, alcohol abuse, violence

3.75 ⭐️ ending was anticlimactic and not a lot of growth for the MC

I was highly anticipating this book and oh my gosh I absolutely loved it! Such a fun and twisty read with great character development. Definitely recommend it!

The Ivies is my first Alexa Donne novel, which is kind of funny since her other books have been on my TBR for years, but I decided to go with her first book that isn't a British Lit retelling (Though to be fair, I have had my fill of Brit Lit the past few years thanks to college). Because this is such a switch for her, I wasn't sure how it would hold up, but I shouldn't have worried. Once I started reading it, I could barely get myself to put it down. I sacrificed so much sleep just to find out what happened, and if Olivia was going to survive it.

Watching Olivia try to navigate her wealthy, competitive school, and her vicious friends was kind of fascinating. Maybe it's because I skipped over all of the public school drama and the chaos of normal college applications, but I think it just added to the distance between my reality and the story's, making the plot twists fresher for me. The lack of people that Olivia could trust really made things exciting too, though I was a little confused about why she trusted one person as much as she did. Regardless, I felt like Donne did an excellent job of showing fake friendships, and the strangeness of watching them falling apart, knowing that you're better off that way but still wanting them anyway.

If you're looking for a book you can't put down, like boarding schools or vicious rich kids definitely try picking this up! It's got a lot of twists and turns, a dash of romance and just enough unease to keep you hooked the entire time.

This was a fun book. It is a murder mystery at a boarding school where a group of girls would do anything to get into an Ivy League school - anything. This is a variation on "mean girls". I haven't read much dark academia, but this is a pretty good one. It's not spectacular, but I'm glad I read it. I could see this being a hit with high schoolers. I would give it 3.5 stars, but since that isn't an option, I'll bump it up to 4.

Overall this is a solid YA mystery. It would make a nice addition to a library collection (who doesn't love a school murder mystery?), but overall isn't anything terribly exciting. The pacing was a bit off for me, but overall I would recommend.

The Ivies by Alexa Donne was not my typical read but sometimes I like a good YA mystery and this one did not disappoint. Easy to read and kept my attention. #TheIvies #NetGalley

The Ivies by Alexa Donne was a well executed YA mystery. I love a prep school setting with a sketchy underbelly!
This was a very fast and fun read, and I would recommend to any YA lover.

This was in the same vein as Heathers or Mean Girls, I really enjoyed the story that was going on and getting to know each character. It was a really interesting murder book and I liked the way the author wrote it.

Would you kill to get into the Ivy League school of your choice? Avery, Olivia, Emma and Margot have found a way to make sure they will get into the Ivy League the want by all kinks for devious methods. Things seem to be working out for them until Emma is suddenly murdered. Whose the killer? Will all the carefully made plans be their undoing? A creepy but fun read.

Unfortunately, I didn't like this book at all.
I had some major issues with the pacing, which felt all over the place. The plot was also very basic. I've read my fair share of murder mysteries and I usually don't mind guessing the culprit and the plot twists, but this time I had it all figured out since like chapter one. The dead was still alive and I had almost everything figured out; the only thing I hadn't guessed right was the murderer's motive and that's because the reveal was just stupid; I had a better theory in my head, the motive was weak and the way they explained it felt like the author was too worried to cross some kind of line. Also, the LGBT+ aspect of this book was fucked up at best and I didn't like the commentary on racism, which didn't feel genuine and came from a white author's POV. Weird at best.
The characters were completely uninteresting and I didn't care for any of them, so there's also that. This book felt like it lacked inspiration and talent from the part of the author, like it was just a product thought and created just to sell, I don't know how to explain it.
The only good thing about it, was that it reads super fast. The prose wasn't *that* original, but it sure made for a quick read.
I am really sad I didn't like this, but I am willing to give this author another try with her next book.

Boarding schools and murder are my book candy. This book has both! Of course I had to request this one!

The Ivies is told from the point of view of Olivia, a scholarship student at fancy-pants Chaflin Academy who has fallen in with a clique of mean girls who will stop at nothing to get into the Ivy League schools of their dreams. Lead by Avery, the Ivies have figured out that only 2-3 students can be admitted to any given Ivy League School in any given year from Chaflin and they want to orchestrate the odds in their favor. Each girl has selected an Ivy to apply to for early action admission, and each girl helps the others take down the competition in hidden, but devastating, ways. The Ivies ensure that each member gets the best grades, the top spots in the right clubs/spots, and any honors that might make her application stronger. The other student at Chaflin suspect that these girls are using dirty tactics, but they don't have the money, power, or devious nature to do anything about it. 


Until Emma ends up dead. 

In the wake of this horrible tragedy, Olivia, who was Emma's roommate, begins to suspect that the Ivies might go to greater lengths than anyone ever realized to reach their goals. Olivia begins to investigate and she uncovers how deep the misdeeds run. 

All in all, The Ivies is fairly standard mystery fare. We have a fairly closed network of subjects, plenty of juicy secrets to uncover about everyone, and a trail of clues to follow along the way. The most obvious suspect is Avery, who is jealous of Emma's admission into Harvard--the school Avery had claimed for herself. I appreciated the rollercoaster the book took me on with Avery as a character. Is she the red herring? Is she the misunderstood bad girl? Is she exactly what she seems? I didn't guess the real killer until closer to the end of the novel, so I do think the story did a good job of waiting until the right time to drop its clues. 

I think my favorite part of this novel was, in fact, the ending and how everything was wrapped up. It is so cliché for a book about murder and people being terrible to be wrapped up in a big bow, but Donne allows her characters to actually suffer real, painful consequences for their sins. Not all of them, of course...because, like in the real world, some people never get caught. But I was glad to see that this was NOT a story about filthy rich people doing cutthroat things and then waltzing off to Harvard like, "that was fun! I grew as a person!" 

Without spoiling too much, I also appreciated how the romance ended. It felt true to both characters and true to life. 

FINAL GRADE: B. I recommend this book to anyone looking for murder-y book candy. It's not as good as Karen McManus's novels and might have a smaller audience, but it's a fun ride that traditional mystery lovers will appreciate. It gets bonus points for lesbian representations, too...because even lesbians can be terrible people.

Reading about the social dynamics of this friend group, at an elite, competitive private school, was gripping if horrifying. It felt like a true-to-life but escalated version of so much of what we see in the college admissions process—a thrilling read!

Oh man, did The Ivies have so much potential. I loved the plot itself but it was the weird intricacies of the book that really impacted my overall feelings. Mainly, there are a few mentions of COVID throughout the book but they weren’t relevant and the book should’ve done without them. It’s like the author or editor or whoever wanted to make sure it was mentioned, but it actually made me like the story less. It’s a current book and mentions how COVID impacted testing and such, but then most parts of the book are like it never happened because there were no longer any restrictions or anything, so it was a problematic add-in to the story. Like yes, I get that it’s realistic fiction and set in our universe, but don’t try to add in a pandemic if you’re not going to take the pandemic seriously. It irked me beyond belief.

But this is one of those books like Pretty Little Liars where all I could think was “Jesus, just go to the freaking police and stop trying to solve this on your own.” It makes my eyes roll all the way to the back of my head in annoyance, but it’s also impossible to put down.

I did like how the ending surprised me, but I also really felt like the book had zero development in terms of character arc. So again. More annoyance and frustration.

But this isn’t a bad book. In fact, I like many aspects of it and would love to see it adapted into a YA drama series. It’s just the abundance of weird little intricacies that really impacting me from really loving it.

2.5 stars, rounded up
This was a relatively quick, kind of fun read. It definitely hits on the cattiness of high school friendships and how cutthroat college admissions can be, so I can see that it would be a book that some of my high schoolers might want to pick up. A lot of the character building fell flat for me and while it would have been a refreshing change to have an antihero-esque main character, I found it very hard to root for her at all.

Considering this a YA novel, not my absolute favorite genre, I did enjoy this!

This had the vibes of A Good Girls Guide To Murder, which I enjoyed. I think YA books with a murder mystery involved makes it better, because usually the teenage drama and high school setting is something that sets me off. I don’t know why.

The book itself was good, I really liked her writing style. The ending was the only part that was a let down. The reasoning behind the why and the who was nothing new. I guessed it early on. Sometimes you can still get away with a solid ending even if it’s predictable, but I just didn’t love the ending in spite of that.

I was also worried I would confuse the characters and I didn’t too much.