Reviews

The Ivies by Alexa Donne

abbyl819's review against another edition

4.0

Overall, this was a quick and enjoyable read. Until the ending, I never felt that the stakes were very high for solving the murder though. There were some things that made the students and ultra academic behavior unbelievable and were distracting to a recent high school student, such as the factual inaccuracy of AP Brit Lit not existing. My main complaint was that the ending was really unsatisfying, which I think was part of the point, where the rich people get away with crazy things and others are punished unfairly and really harshly, but it did make the ending unsatisfying especially considering the we never get to find out if Emma's killer actually gets convicted.

youarethelibrarian's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Well this was a wild ride. I think it took about 60 pages for me to be hooked, but then it didn’t let me go until the end. Basically all of the characters are awful, but their decisions and actions are a train wreck you can’t look away from.

I have to say, it was insane that a certain person got away with what he did. But wow, I do have to wonder if elite college admission is really like this?? Like for real? 

It’s a super entertaining story, but things did move so fast that it was a bit difficult to keep up, and some of the sentences were just weird and took me out of the story trying to understand what was being said.

There’s a lot to unpack in terms of classism and racism, and privilege and how far money can or can’t  take you, and a big question of if it’s worth it. I actually really love how the book ends, though.

youmeandem's review against another edition

3.0

out of all the secrets the worst kept one was clearly avery being a lesbian when she literally dressed up as lexa for the theme party and had her poster up on her wall??? how did olivia's stupid ass not realize this sooner wtf

anyways olivia sucked, avery deserves better, and alexa donne has a really nice way with words... i just wish they'd gone to something More than what this book had to offer

bluejaybooks's review against another edition

A fun, page-turning mystery.

loureadz's review against another edition

3.0

cute little YA mystery. nothing tops GGGTM tho.

angay_reads's review against another edition

funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism and Toxic friendship

Minor: Eating disorder and Incest

harleyrae's review against another edition

2.0

2.5/5 Stars

This just fell very flat for me. Not a big fan at all.

barfunkle's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

amiastanstwice's review against another edition

emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This was an interesting book, to say the least. I’ll start with what I enjoyed first. The theme of the book is very real, people can indeed become entirely focused on their grades, leading them to make morally wrong decisions. I liked Avery. she was a very enjoyable character to me. Olivia was a protagonist I felt neutral about. She wasn’t overly interesting to me. I’ll talk about her more later. I appreciated that she and her love interest didn’t get a happy ending, perhaps because it was one of the few things that surprised me, given all I’ve seen. I really enjoyed the writer’s writing style. I love first-person so much because they immerse me in the story, which she did a great job of. Now, moving on to the aspects I disliked. I was never really interested in the murderer. I already knew the motive—that it was done because Emma wasn’t such a ‘good girl,’ or whatever. So, I didn’t really care who did it. When it was revealed that Emma was dating her professor, I knew he wasn’t the killer. He was the first suspect to me, and I already knew it wasn’t Avery. Even later on, it didn’t feel like Olivia did much to discover that Tyler was the actual killer. The whole subplot about Tyler and Avery dating, but not really, was a silly little gag that annoyed me. I’m pretty sure it was mentioned at the beginning that it’s always the boyfriends, to foreshadow, but like, yeah, it is always the boyfriends. And that gets pretty boring after a while. Olivia felt like she had no character development at all. She kept saying that she was desperate for the Ivies’ validation the entire time, but I didn’t feel like it was portrayed effectively. Despite all my criticism, I feel like this is still a solid piece of work. I may tune into some of her future work if something excites me. Ty for reading my rant

yuelia_lyr's review against another edition

mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5