Reviews

The Ivies by Alexa Donne

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

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

ikler's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

mnoreads's review

dark mysterious medium-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

3.0

hawkeye_hawkins's review against another edition

medium-paced

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

3.5