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A review by annesophie_ballerina
The Ivies by Alexa Donne
4.0
Heathers meets A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, but make it dark academia.
This felt a bit like a tragedy, and I honestly loved that they didn’t really get a happy ending. This book points out flaws in the education and court system in which advantages are given to those with money.
Olivia is clever, intuitive, and really good at murder investigations. I didn’t love the main part of this book, but the fact that it had the ending that it did kind of sealed the deal for me. Olivia didn’t have the happy ending they usually have. Her life wasn’t crappy, as she got into a good school (I’m forgetting the name) because of being kind to a girl that was kind to her. However, she doesn’t get the boy (he betrays her, she walks out on him) she’s expelled from the elite private school she’s worked so hard at, she forfeits her lifelong dream of going to Harvard.
However, Olivia is an unlikeable character, at least in the very last chapter. In the beginning, Olivia is completely in the dark about her friends shenanigans, we realize they’re leaving her out, and even though she’s an Ivy and that makes her a jerk, she doesn’t seem like she wants to be one anymore. But gradually, we get exposed to more and more of what Olivia has done. She even is hypocritical of some of her friends in some situations, and she slips down a farther slope. In the last chapter, she lies again. She claws her way back up. I think this could be interpreted different ways depending on the person, but personally I think that Olivia didn’t learn from her mistakes of being an Ivy. She’s going to lie and cheat and become friends with the wrong people again, and it’s not going to work out for her. She didn’t get into her dream school, she didn’t get the boy, she didn’t get friends- why would her strategy work a second time?
The whole think feels like a high school tragedy after finishing it, like an old biography written by an unfortunate high school student who was caught up in all this. I think that’s really what it is. Olivia trusts the wrong people, makes mistakes, and although she solves the murder and gains things along the way, it feels like a tragedy when you realize most people in the book were using her.
I can’t help but think it was meant to be this way, and I love the book for that. It’s so different amidst all of my other novels, because of its melancholy ending.
As for the actual murder, I thought the plot twists were very well done, and although I did suspect the murderer, I did not suspect everything that led up to it. I had many other theories about Margot and the other Ivies, and it was fun theorizing about everything happening in the book! I loved it, and although I can’t put it on my favorites shelf, a good four stars seems perfect for this book.
This felt a bit like a tragedy, and I honestly loved that they didn’t really get a happy ending. This book points out flaws in the education and court system in which advantages are given to those with money.
Olivia is clever, intuitive, and really good at murder investigations. I didn’t love the main part of this book, but the fact that it had the ending that it did kind of sealed the deal for me. Olivia didn’t have the happy ending they usually have. Her life wasn’t crappy, as she got into a good school (I’m forgetting the name) because of being kind to a girl that was kind to her. However, she doesn’t get the boy (he betrays her, she walks out on him) she’s expelled from the elite private school she’s worked so hard at, she forfeits her lifelong dream of going to Harvard.
However, Olivia is an unlikeable character, at least in the very last chapter. In the beginning, Olivia is completely in the dark about her friends shenanigans, we realize they’re leaving her out, and even though she’s an Ivy and that makes her a jerk, she doesn’t seem like she wants to be one anymore. But gradually, we get exposed to more and more of what Olivia has done. She even is hypocritical of some of her friends in some situations, and she slips down a farther slope. In the last chapter, she lies again. She claws her way back up. I think this could be interpreted different ways depending on the person, but personally I think that Olivia didn’t learn from her mistakes of being an Ivy. She’s going to lie and cheat and become friends with the wrong people again, and it’s not going to work out for her. She didn’t get into her dream school, she didn’t get the boy, she didn’t get friends- why would her strategy work a second time?
The whole think feels like a high school tragedy after finishing it, like an old biography written by an unfortunate high school student who was caught up in all this. I think that’s really what it is. Olivia trusts the wrong people, makes mistakes, and although she solves the murder and gains things along the way, it feels like a tragedy when you realize most people in the book were using her.
I can’t help but think it was meant to be this way, and I love the book for that. It’s so different amidst all of my other novels, because of its melancholy ending.
As for the actual murder, I thought the plot twists were very well done, and although I did suspect the murderer, I did not suspect everything that led up to it. I had many other theories about Margot and the other Ivies, and it was fun theorizing about everything happening in the book! I loved it, and although I can’t put it on my favorites shelf, a good four stars seems perfect for this book.