A review by rachelrreads
The Ivies by Alexa Donne

4.0

This was an entertaining and fast-paced YA thriller set in the hallowed halls of a fictional and bougie Massachusetts boarding school. Alexa Donne's prose is clean and succinct, but this novel was also full of common tropes about high school students. The Ivies of the title refers to both the Ivy League but also the name of the popular girls clique at the fictional Clafin Academy. The novel's narrator is the typical "fish out of water" Olivia Winters, who is the lone scholarship student in the Ivies' clique. That said, Olivia also has her fair share of bad deeds, and I think the novel tries to paint her as nicer and more sympathetic than she is; I found her downright irritating and impulsive at times. Donne definitely wrote a novel that's on trend, and I think she captures well just how ruthless high school girls can be.

For those who liked this book, I also highly recommend Jessica Goodman's high school thrillers/mysteries They Wish They Were Us and They'll Never Catch Us! Ironically, Goodman and I were classmates at Penn.

3.5 stars