The Ivies is one of the more realistic YA thrillers I've read in recent memory, almost too realistic. You can tell Donne must have background/experience in the college admissions world, because she captures the pathos of teens who think getting into the right college is everything almost perfectly. The characters are pretty well-rounded, although Margot and Sierra still fall into certain stereotype traps as the Asian and Black characters in the clique. I also think it's a bit uncomfortable how their character arcs turn out in contrast to Avery, who's White. None of the characters are particularly likeable, which is fine. Olivia works as a protagonist, although she's the standard "working class girl who falls in with the rich girls" MC.

I have mixed feelings about the ending. On the one hand, I love how realistic it was in reflecting the ways rich people escape consequences. However, it was almost too realistic in that it wasn't satisfying to see where all the characters ended up, even if that's how real life is. The killer's motivation was on the weak side, but the ride to ge there was good. Overall, I enjoyed The Ivies. It's an easy read with a fast-paced story.

The Ivies has been one of my favorite books in the past two years. Alexa Donne does a wonderful job with the characters and creating a murder mystery that will stick with you.

I am recommending this book to my students, especially this world is so cutthroat when it comes to education and making it in this world.

Alexa Donne has hit her stride with The Ivies. I was not a big fan of her previous two books (they weren't bad, just very meh and forgettable) but The Ivies suits her style and authorial voice so much better. This book, while still not quite the zinger it might have been, is a timely and tightly-paced thriller that hits all the notes it needs to and evokes exactly the kind of "vast carelessness" of the WASPy elite, the competitive boarding school environment, and the breathtaking lengths kids are pushed to go to for the lie of "success" they're taught to believe in. I was a bit surprised by the direction the ending took, but I think I do like it at the end of the day, even if it makes me simmer a bit at the characters who got away with more than they deserved. Also - Ethan! I don't even know what to say about him! But Ethan!

As a certain conniving little b**ch likes to say..."remarkable."

Will keep your blood pressure dangerously high and your productivity at an all time low. That means, cancel your plans cause you're going to want to read this in one sitting.

If you love ONE OF US IS LYING, you're going to devour THE IVIES. It's a who-dun-it that's nearly impossible to guess. Trust no one. Anyone could be out for your neck, that's my take-away. As a prep-school graduate this hit all the marks and triggered one too many high-school memories. A hard-hitter. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Great book! The twists and turns get you every time. You never see the end coming at all. Great read!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
What a fabulous read!!
I was pleasantly surprised to read this new-to-me author, Alexa Donne. The premise of this novel was expertly woven in this tale of high society girls doing bad things to further themselves and earn acceptance into the Ivy League colleges. Who knew what a twisted world this could be?!?!
The Ivies was the balm to my reading slump, and now I feel revived!

3.5/5 stars. - To Be Released in May 2021.
Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

Well, this was a fun read. A combination of Mean Girls, boarding school, and murder sets this stage for this page turner. A group of friends at elite private school manipulate and screw around with their classmates test scores, class rankings, and extracurriculars, all for the sake of giving themselves a better show at being accepted to one of the Ivy League schools. The girls, known as The Ivies, have each set their sights on one of the Ivy League colleges. Acceptance is already tough but when someone steals your coveted acceptance spot? Well, who knows how far someone will go seek revenge.

This was a fun read. It definitely has a lot of up to date things happening, like how COVID disrupted a previous semester, lots of mentions of Google Docs and social media (no TIkTok though! Interesting...). The story started off simply but built and twisted as you keep reading. Most of the characters are straight up awful to one another. I did pull it down in ratings to a 3.5 vs. a 4 because I "figured it out" and I NEVER figure it out!

I loved this book. Excellent twists and turns, and it was gloriously cut throat. If you like a good YA thriller, this is your book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book started strong, but as it went on, it fell flat for me. As this book got closer to the end, I found it a bit obvious and easy to guess. It wasn't a terrible book, but I think that the emotional grey area that the characters had could have been done a bit better. I also think that some details weren't entirely needed and just seemed to have been added for plot twists. Overall, you should give this book a shot if you enjoy Karen McManus's work.

As someone who applied to Ivy League schools and attended one, I can say college admissions were intense then and they are probably worse now. From my college friends that went to similar boarding schools, I can attest that sabotaging and breaking friendships over colleges is not unheard of, and maybe even more common than we think. Of course, there wasn't any murder that I heard of. Alexa Donne captured very well the intensity that is college admissions. While you are experiencing them yourself, there is nothing more important that getting the congratulations email. I wanted to just hug the students at this school and tell them that the name of the college isn't worth all of this. Because even though they were fiction characters, I think we all know high school seniors like them that put all their eggs in one basket (or college in this case).

Mysery-wise I think the story was well built. The suspense built up and there was never a second I thought any of the characters were safe. It was a fast-paced story that didn't let you put the book down even for a second. So many twists and turns I didn't see coming.

I appreciated how Alexa Donne acknowledged that these characters were very exaggerated forms of the overachiever Ivy-bound student. I could tell from her writing and references that Alexa Donne has experience with students applying to these types of schools. Her mentions of College Confidential made me break out into sweats from anxiety I did not know I still held for that site even years later. Overall, I think this extreme college admissions story is built in enough reality, but also some absurd drama that will make high school students both relate to the characters, but also see how absurd the college admissions process can be.

Book Review for The Ivies by Alexa Donne
Full review for this title can be found at: @fyebooks on Instagram!

Misses the mark for me. The girls are not likable at all, the plot is meager, and the pacing too slow. I didn’t find anything to enjoy about this book.

A timely fictional story based on a true system, a biased admissions process, and unfair access the elite have to the Ivy universities. This fast-paced whodunnit will keep readers guessing and rethink the envy we have for the 1%.

Perfect recommendation for Karen M. McManus fans.

(current events reference COVID-19 Pandemic)

The Ivies was a fun and engaging read that had plenty of twists and turns throughout the plot. I began the novel thinking it was going to be a predictable thriller, however I was pleasantly surprised with the hidden and revealed moments of the text.

Most of the characters, I loved to hate but I really felt some empathy with the main character, Olivia who was stuck in a world that was not hers. This novel brimming with dark academia and ruthless ambition really pulls the reader in from the beginning and keeps the reader turning pages until the very end.

Mean Girls meets Karen McManus meets in The Ivies where 5 boarding school queens will do absolutely anything to get into the Ivy League school of their choice.

Olivia is the odd one out of the group as a scholarship student but still participates in the sabotage and underhanded exploits of The Ivies. However, she has no clue how much more the other four have done to get ahead. When one of the Ivies ends up dead, Olivia decides to discover the murderer and ends up learning more about her "friends" and herself than she could have ever bargained for.

Even if you discover the killer before they're revealed, the motive will still shock you.

Five ambitious and ethically deficient girls at an elite boarding school are in a no holds barred competition with their less ruthless classmates, and as it turns out, with each other, to be admitted to an Ivy League school. Intense and deliciously wicked- it’s an academic cage fight- and nothing is out of bounds, even murder.

Gimmie a murdering boarding school book and I'm a happy girl.

The Ivies</em> is a fun and surprising novel by Alexa Donne whose story encompasses romance, secret affairs, murder and mean girls all in one. I love a good boarding school book and this one is a step above. Rich with devious mean girls and lots of fun characters, no one is as they seem.

I'm not going to lie. About half way through the book I thought I knew what was going on.

But I didn't.

Like, not at all.

The beginning of the book is a solid set up for the story and you need it to really understand all of the craziness that happens. The beginning is part detective novel and the second half of the book is all thriller. I like how Olivia is not innocent, how she was just as flawed as the rest of the Ivies. I loved the mean girls. They're terrible, so so terrible. OMG It was a treat. Because we all know those girls and there's something fascinating and intriguing about them, how they veer so far.

I don't want to give anything away because I think you really have to read the book to enjoy the suspense. It's a fun murder mean girls mystery with so many twists, I was genuinely impressed with all of the threads the author kept going, intriguing me more and more every page.

Go get this one. It's perfect for a weekend.

Wow. Okay. I have thoughts.
The main plot follows Olivia Winters: a scholarship kid at snobby prep school whose somehow managed to befriend a brood of rich bitches. But things start to unravel when someone is murdered on campus. Olivia takes it upon herself to piece together clues and finds that her so-called friends might be murderers as well as Ivy hopefuls.

I genuinely could not stop reading this novel until I figured out who did the who-done-it. There were so many characters that could have enough motive that I was left spinning. In the end, when the killer was exposed, I was pretty satisfied with it. I was simultaneously like "I knew it, I knew it!" and "Shit! It's not ---?!"
Donne's writing has really improved from Brightly Burning. There were some sentences I stopped and thought, 'Huh. What a good way to put that.'

I know this is nitpicky, but the coronavirus references threw me for a loop. It was hard to ground myself where coronavirus is canon in a novel set in 2021 America and not the dominant thought in everyone's head. They were gathering! No masks! Ah! That was literally all I thought about at one point in the novel.
But, quite simply, this just isn't a book that'll stick with me long. I'll forget the characters and the plot with time and I don't think my mind will trail back to it like it does with Harry Potter or Addie LaRue. There's nothing about this novel that introduces a new message. So while it's a perfectly fun time, I couldn't give it 5/5 stars.
However, for fans of Pretty Little Liars, I couldn't recommend this more!

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a great YA thriller! I thoroughly enjoyed it, I didn't predict who the killer was, I loved one of the side characters a whole lot and spent most of the book thinking about her Lexa poster and obsession. All in all, just pretty great and I look forward to Alexa Donne's next work.

This was pretty good. I was really pleased with what happened with Avery's character. The MC being shocked by her coming out was hilarious and very heterosexual of her bc like what straight girl is that obsessed with Lexa?

I will say, the decision to acknowledge COVID-19, but have it be completely and totally over by Fall 2020, no masks, no social distancing, no PTSD, was really jarring. If it's going to be like that, just don't mention it at all. That's okay!!!