You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book had me on edge since chapter 1. I was not sure where the book was going until I got really into it but once I started to read it got much better. The fact that it’s based off of college admissions but then you find more and more as you go along. It makes the book so much better. I would recommend this book to anyone who needs to get into a little bit of thriller, and it’s not too much but also just to take a break from the cute stuff.
I absolutely adored this book! From the hook—boarding school/competitive college admissions/murder—I knew I needed to read this one and it didn’t disappoint. It’s twisty, the characters are well crafted, perfectly paced, and the mystery is so well thought out! Red herrings and clues were dangled throughout and I fully enjoyed following this mystery! Alexa Donne’s writing and voice is my favorite, I know I’ll be picking up anything and everything she writes in the future!
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
4.75/5
holy crap. u dont think a book has made me this mad and anxious in a long long time (and i recently read all of the zodiac academy books so that says something). every chapter left me gasping, every revelations threw me off, every word made me more anxious. i adored these characters. i know none of them are good. but i dont care. they’re so interesting and complex. the way the interacted with each other was so interesting and so were the different dynamics between. and thats not to mention the amazing writing, the end and how interesting the boarding school itself was. in convulsions i loved this!!
holy crap. u dont think a book has made me this mad and anxious in a long long time (and i recently read all of the zodiac academy books so that says something). every chapter left me gasping, every revelations threw me off, every word made me more anxious. i adored these characters. i know none of them are good. but i dont care. they’re so interesting and complex. the way the interacted with each other was so interesting and so were the different dynamics between. and thats not to mention the amazing writing, the end and how interesting the boarding school itself was. in convulsions i loved this!!
This wasn't bad, it was just predictable in some senses. That has probably has something to do with how many of these types of books I have read.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Really great writing style and the plot was pretty great until the end. The two biggest plot twists were predictably and poorly done so the ending fell flat. And the motive for the murder? It didn't even make sense! The relationship with Ethan and Olivia was just strange and what happened was predictable. Anyways...I still really liked it but not the best in the genre.
All of the plot twists were predictable. There was almost no development of characters. The ending was completely disappointing and predictable.
What the HECK was this book?
Spoilers Ahead!! :)
Okay I need to start with the positives
1. It was very fast paced and engaging.
2. Donne is good at helping us get into the story. Her descriptions of the scenes were very well done.
3. I liked that we really got to know Olivia and her thoughts. It was cool to see her mindset.
4. Really solid premise.
Right, now onto the not so good:
Okay. So first of all, the characters. I only liked a grand total of two. And they were The detective and Avery. (Which is probably not what Donne was going for oops.) They were all so stuck up and bratty, and carried this holier than thou attitude that drove me nuts. ESPECIALLY the adults. I'M SORRY HEADMISTRESS but it doesn't matter who your teachers are. THE MAN FRICKIN TRIED TO KILL SOMEONE. Anyway, on to the specifics.
Olivia: Oh my goodness this girl. This character did not develop at all, maybe an ounce. Essentially she gets into Harvard, but a lot of her success has to do with sabotaging other students to get ahead, and long story short, it all winds up to her roommate getting murdered. So then everything gets discovered, and she loses her acception to Harvard and gets expelled from her private school. Basically because she cheats her way to the top, (even though a lot of it happens behind her back by her "friends,") her whole life gets messed up. You'd think that she'd realize this was not good in the long run. But NO.
I don't understand. At the end of the book, She's getting interviewed for a documentary about this whole scandal because its been national news. And the interviewer asks, something along the lines of, "was all of this worth it? If you had the chance to go back and do it again would you do it?" And obviously, Olivia says "no" to the interviewer so she doesn't seem like a monster. But on the inside, she's just like, "Absolutely, I would. I would do it all again. I will just totally go for it. Heck yeah, man. Let's do this." Her character went from a backstabbing mean girl to backstabbing mean girl. Nothing changed. I just didn't like that. Her character went literally nowhere. And don't get me started with how many dumb choices this girl makes. She has absolutely no common sense. Absolutely none. Go to the police. I'm begging you Olivia, go see the police. And get some new friends while you're at it.
Sierra: Okay, so Sierra was a pretty good character. She was the only one of the Ivies who I actually liked. I think it was cool to have her be a computer whiz, and the fact that she got into Yale was awesome too. Her character didn't really go anywhere either though, so idk.
Margot: She was annoying as heck. I feel like she was a knockoff Gretchen from Mean Girls. I just didn't like her all that much.
Avery: Surprisingly, I liked her more than Olivia. It was cool to see who she was under the facade. I feel like it was the standard "mean girl has a mean mom who expects too much from her." I liked that she and Olivia never became best friends and stayed more along the lines of frienemies, too. It's a pretty cool dynamic to read about.
Emma: I felt like we didn't really know a whole lot about her.
I mean, you know.
She died.
That was the whole point of the book. I wish we got to spend more time with her to get to know her in life rather than in death. I think I could have felt more sympathy for her if I knew her better.
Tyler: Haha Tyler is a sociopath. Utterly insane. First of all. His motive for murder (uh. Spoilers) was incredibly stupid. I'm sorry, but NO ONE wants to have a good essay that badly. For murder mystery novels, the motive needs to make sense to me. And this one just was way too off the rails.
Ethan: This man wants to major in political science sir I beg you to reconsider.
Anyway.
I really liked him until he turned out to be a backstabbing liar. He was a good character for a bit, and one of the only ones I liked. And all of a sudden, he's not a good character because surprise! He decides to tell the whole school that Olivia got into Harvard, which wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that Olivia is terrified that Avery is going to hurt her because she didn't get in. And then it turns out that he got into Harvard as well, and didn't announce his acceptance to protect himself. WHAT THE HECK MAN???
You supposedly LIKE Olivia! Why did you throw her under the bus?? What was the point? He just messes up with everything and it's just so dumb. I'm bitter. His character development was wack.
AND THE PLOT
It was definitely a plot. I will I say that it was a cool premise. A cutthroat competition to get into Ivy-league schools with a murder mystery thrown in sounds so cool. I'm totally down for that. Like, I would love to read about the lengths someone would go to get into an Ivy League school. But it wasn't executed well. I'm really disappointed that I did not love this book.
I also really love the "whodunit" type of mystery, and I love following the plot and riding the roller coaster of plot twists and turns. But the plot twists in this book were utterly insane. And not in in good way.
Now as I said before, I love twists and turns in a story. My favorite mystery novel that I read last year was "A Good Girls Guide to Murder." It was so good, because it kept you guessing the whole time.
I feel this book tried to do that, but it just didn't work for me. This book tried to throw so many twists and turns at you,, and several of them don't even make any sense. It felt like they were there purely for shock value, at least in AGGGTM the twists had a narrative purpose. I just felt like the plot went all over the place.
Especially since the murderer ended up being the most basic "murderer" in the mystery book. It's always the boyfriend. Always. I called it about 20% in. (I actually called most of the plot twists, haha.) Normally this doesn't bother me, but this time it was so obvious that it all the suspense was gone. There were just some really obvious hints that led me to belive that Tyler was the murderer.
There was also a heap of "plot convenience." So many things just happened to work out, and that stuff drives me nuts. I just felt like because of this, there were no stakes.
Okay, I said I'd get back to Tyler's murder plot. Okay here's the deal.
Tyler.
What the heck.
I understand that you ou want to get into a good college. We all want to get into a good college. But murdering your girlfriend to have an interesting essay topic is utterly nonsensical. Not to mention, he does it because the essay will supposedly help him get an edge over the POC who will have a "better" chance of getting in because of their race. He's certain that's why he got rejected.
Newsflash buster. Maybe you didn't get in because YOU DIDN'T QUALIFY. Ever think of that?? Use your brain stupid. Like, maybe they didn't accept you because they wanted someone else like, I don't know. Some nice normal person from South Carolina or something.
And there are other colleges than Cornell. It's sad you didn't get in, but it's not the end of the world. Get some help writing an essay, maybe apply to more than one school, and move on with your life.
Okay, last thing.
This is actually a really big pet peeve I had with this book. The amount of political commentary in this book drove me insane. I came here to read about a murder mystery. To find out who the killer is in this in this book. I didn't read it to hear about your "hot takes" on the justice system or systemic racism or how "every single white male in the whole entire world is a horrible human being and they're all privileged and they all want to ruin our lives." I'm sorry, I just I wasn't into that. If you want to write a book social commentary, then write a book about social commentary.
And maybe if like it had been like an overt theme/statement you know, that would have been totally fine. I would have been like, okay, fine, whatever. Go off, do your thing.
But if it's supposed to be a story with a specific plot, just throwing in little quips about the patriarchy and systemic racism and oppression and woke culture doesn't sit well with me. Things like this:
"here's the white male getting everything that he wants!" or like, "boys will be boys who have no sense of human decency, and they just want to hurt you." Or, "you're rich white girls so you get everything handed to you. You can't complain ever.
Like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just feel like there was just so much political commentary in this that it took me out of the book. I just didn't like it. It felt like Donne was trying to make a political statement that fell flat.
So that's about it.
I'm pretty sure this is the longest review I've ever posted here, but I had a LOT of thoughts on this book. As you can clearly tell.
All in all, I thought it was okay. It had a really cool premise, and it was engaging and a pretty fast-paced read. I just think the characters could have been a lot more fleshed out, and the plot could have made more sense. So yeah, 3/5.
Spoilers Ahead!! :)
Okay I need to start with the positives
1. It was very fast paced and engaging.
2. Donne is good at helping us get into the story. Her descriptions of the scenes were very well done.
3. I liked that we really got to know Olivia and her thoughts. It was cool to see her mindset.
4. Really solid premise.
Right, now onto the not so good:
Okay. So first of all, the characters. I only liked a grand total of two. And they were The detective and Avery. (Which is probably not what Donne was going for oops.) They were all so stuck up and bratty, and carried this holier than thou attitude that drove me nuts. ESPECIALLY the adults. I'M SORRY HEADMISTRESS but it doesn't matter who your teachers are. THE MAN FRICKIN TRIED TO KILL SOMEONE. Anyway, on to the specifics.
Olivia: Oh my goodness this girl. This character did not develop at all, maybe an ounce. Essentially she gets into Harvard, but a lot of her success has to do with sabotaging other students to get ahead, and long story short, it all winds up to her roommate getting murdered. So then everything gets discovered, and she loses her acception to Harvard and gets expelled from her private school. Basically because she cheats her way to the top, (even though a lot of it happens behind her back by her "friends,") her whole life gets messed up. You'd think that she'd realize this was not good in the long run. But NO.
I don't understand. At the end of the book, She's getting interviewed for a documentary about this whole scandal because its been national news. And the interviewer asks, something along the lines of, "was all of this worth it? If you had the chance to go back and do it again would you do it?" And obviously, Olivia says "no" to the interviewer so she doesn't seem like a monster. But on the inside, she's just like, "Absolutely, I would. I would do it all again. I will just totally go for it. Heck yeah, man. Let's do this." Her character went from a backstabbing mean girl to backstabbing mean girl. Nothing changed. I just didn't like that. Her character went literally nowhere. And don't get me started with how many dumb choices this girl makes. She has absolutely no common sense. Absolutely none. Go to the police. I'm begging you Olivia, go see the police. And get some new friends while you're at it.
Sierra: Okay, so Sierra was a pretty good character. She was the only one of the Ivies who I actually liked. I think it was cool to have her be a computer whiz, and the fact that she got into Yale was awesome too. Her character didn't really go anywhere either though, so idk.
Margot: She was annoying as heck. I feel like she was a knockoff Gretchen from Mean Girls. I just didn't like her all that much.
Avery: Surprisingly, I liked her more than Olivia. It was cool to see who she was under the facade. I feel like it was the standard "mean girl has a mean mom who expects too much from her." I liked that she and Olivia never became best friends and stayed more along the lines of frienemies, too. It's a pretty cool dynamic to read about.
Emma: I felt like we didn't really know a whole lot about her.
I mean, you know.
She died.
That was the whole point of the book. I wish we got to spend more time with her to get to know her in life rather than in death. I think I could have felt more sympathy for her if I knew her better.
Tyler: Haha Tyler is a sociopath. Utterly insane. First of all. His motive for murder (uh. Spoilers) was incredibly stupid. I'm sorry, but NO ONE wants to have a good essay that badly. For murder mystery novels, the motive needs to make sense to me. And this one just was way too off the rails.
Ethan: This man wants to major in political science sir I beg you to reconsider.
Anyway.
I really liked him until he turned out to be a backstabbing liar. He was a good character for a bit, and one of the only ones I liked. And all of a sudden, he's not a good character because surprise! He decides to tell the whole school that Olivia got into Harvard, which wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that Olivia is terrified that Avery is going to hurt her because she didn't get in. And then it turns out that he got into Harvard as well, and didn't announce his acceptance to protect himself. WHAT THE HECK MAN???
You supposedly LIKE Olivia! Why did you throw her under the bus?? What was the point? He just messes up with everything and it's just so dumb. I'm bitter. His character development was wack.
AND THE PLOT
It was definitely a plot. I will I say that it was a cool premise. A cutthroat competition to get into Ivy-league schools with a murder mystery thrown in sounds so cool. I'm totally down for that. Like, I would love to read about the lengths someone would go to get into an Ivy League school. But it wasn't executed well. I'm really disappointed that I did not love this book.
I also really love the "whodunit" type of mystery, and I love following the plot and riding the roller coaster of plot twists and turns. But the plot twists in this book were utterly insane. And not in in good way.
Now as I said before, I love twists and turns in a story. My favorite mystery novel that I read last year was "A Good Girls Guide to Murder." It was so good, because it kept you guessing the whole time.
I feel this book tried to do that, but it just didn't work for me. This book tried to throw so many twists and turns at you,, and several of them don't even make any sense. It felt like they were there purely for shock value, at least in AGGGTM the twists had a narrative purpose. I just felt like the plot went all over the place.
Especially since the murderer ended up being the most basic "murderer" in the mystery book. It's always the boyfriend. Always. I called it about 20% in. (I actually called most of the plot twists, haha.) Normally this doesn't bother me, but this time it was so obvious that it all the suspense was gone. There were just some really obvious hints that led me to belive that Tyler was the murderer.
There was also a heap of "plot convenience." So many things just happened to work out, and that stuff drives me nuts. I just felt like because of this, there were no stakes.
Okay, I said I'd get back to Tyler's murder plot. Okay here's the deal.
Tyler.
What the heck.
I understand that you ou want to get into a good college. We all want to get into a good college. But murdering your girlfriend to have an interesting essay topic is utterly nonsensical. Not to mention, he does it because the essay will supposedly help him get an edge over the POC who will have a "better" chance of getting in because of their race. He's certain that's why he got rejected.
Newsflash buster. Maybe you didn't get in because YOU DIDN'T QUALIFY. Ever think of that?? Use your brain stupid. Like, maybe they didn't accept you because they wanted someone else like, I don't know. Some nice normal person from South Carolina or something.
And there are other colleges than Cornell. It's sad you didn't get in, but it's not the end of the world. Get some help writing an essay, maybe apply to more than one school, and move on with your life.
Okay, last thing.
This is actually a really big pet peeve I had with this book. The amount of political commentary in this book drove me insane. I came here to read about a murder mystery. To find out who the killer is in this in this book. I didn't read it to hear about your "hot takes" on the justice system or systemic racism or how "every single white male in the whole entire world is a horrible human being and they're all privileged and they all want to ruin our lives." I'm sorry, I just I wasn't into that. If you want to write a book social commentary, then write a book about social commentary.
And maybe if like it had been like an overt theme/statement you know, that would have been totally fine. I would have been like, okay, fine, whatever. Go off, do your thing.
But if it's supposed to be a story with a specific plot, just throwing in little quips about the patriarchy and systemic racism and oppression and woke culture doesn't sit well with me. Things like this:
"here's the white male getting everything that he wants!" or like, "boys will be boys who have no sense of human decency, and they just want to hurt you." Or, "you're rich white girls so you get everything handed to you. You can't complain ever.
Like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just feel like there was just so much political commentary in this that it took me out of the book. I just didn't like it. It felt like Donne was trying to make a political statement that fell flat.
So that's about it.
I'm pretty sure this is the longest review I've ever posted here, but I had a LOT of thoughts on this book. As you can clearly tell.
All in all, I thought it was okay. It had a really cool premise, and it was engaging and a pretty fast-paced read. I just think the characters could have been a lot more fleshed out, and the plot could have made more sense. So yeah, 3/5.