4.5 ⭐

"White Ivy", by Susie Yang is a stellar debut novel. It is a book that I compulsively read and could not put down. Its protagonist is Ivy Lin, a Chinese-American woman who immigrated from China to the outskirts of Boston, Massachusetts at a very young age alongside her family. Throughout her childhood and teen years she yearns to be like her white classmates and despises her family and her surroundings. She is taught to shoplift by her maternal grandmother, and she uses that "skill" to get herself items that she otherwise wouldn't have access to, to try to create an image of herself closer to the one she envisions. She becomes infatuated with Gideon, a wealthy classmate at her school, but after an embarrassing incident, she loses touch with him, Through happenstance she meets Gideon again as an adult, and pursues the chance she has at the life she once wanted to have with him at all costs.

It is very hard to categorize "White Ivy" as a specific book genre. It is part coming-of-age story and part immigrant-story, as we follow Ivy dealing with the hardships and struggles from her childhood to her adulthood. There is also a lurking suspense in the story, especially in the second half of the book, that makes "White Ivy" read as a thriller. The characters are complex, and shatter stereotypes. A bonus for me as a Romanian reader, was the character of Roux Roman, Ivy's childhood friend, who is a Romanian-American man. While I cannot say that I loved him as a character, I did love the inclusion of a Romanian-American character, which I haven't personally come across before unless I was reading a vampire book. Another aspect of the book I really loved was reading the section about Ivy's trip back to China to visit her relatives there. I've gotten so used to immigrant stories describing the home countries as impoverished and the people living there dreaming of the Western world, that reading about Ivy's crazy rich aunt and the rich China scene was both novel and refreshing. The pacing of the book, while it did lull a bit in the middle, made the story engaging and the characters, not only the main ones but also secondary ones, were very compelling. Things escalated so quickly towards the end, and when I thought I had everything figured out, the ending hit me out of nowhere, which is always a pleasant surprise.

I thoroughly enjoyed "White Ivy" and wholeheartedly recommend it to those seeking a darker type of coming of age story, or a different kind of immigrant story. As a side note, I also partly listened to the audiobook on Scribd as soon as the book came out, and the audiobook, narrated by the wonderful Emily Woo Zeller, is also phenomenal. Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review. I can't wait to buy my own copy when I can get a version without a permanent sticker on the cover!

As I read this coming of age story I couldn't help but be reminded of The Great Gatsby, however unlike the Great Gatsby, it just didn't hold my interest. I never really could connect with the social climber Ivy.

I am struggling with how to rate this book - did I love it? No. Did I hate it? No. I was able to grab a copy of this on Hoopla and I will preface that I totally zoned in and out multiple times so I think I missed some key parts, yet the storyline still made sense. I don't think I would suggest listening to this one - I wasnt invested and would totally have skimmed over certain sections if I was paying enough attention to do so.

Ivy is not a likeable character, so that was my biggest issue with the story. The reader follows along with her transition from a teenager to an adult, which I normally love, but I was bored 90% of the time. I wasn't really fighting for her happiness, mostly because she hurt the people she loved the most and liked a LOT.

The story could have been significantly shorter and while I appreciated the twist at the end, this is not a book that I consider a must read. I feel it was miscategorized as a mystery/thriller and because I had that genre in mind, this fell very flat for me.

Wow!!! This book kept me guessing right up until the end!! So many twists and turns.

Ivy wanted to belong with the in crowd and stole items that her parents would not spend money on for her. She goes to a sleep over party but tells her parents it is at another home. They show up the next morning at the house and embarrass her in front of all the kids. Ivy, years later meets Gideon again after his sister gets them back together. Ivy and Gideon end up getting married but not before Ivy kills someone and finds out Gideon is gay.

Thank you for an early copy of this great book.

When is one's future decided? Is it decided at birth? Is the future what you make of it? Ivy is not sure. She is raised mostly by her Chinese grandmother who teaches her to steal, cheat, do what it takes to make it in life. Her parents are hard workers who do not understand Ivy's unhappiness with what she has. What Ivey doesn't have as a young teen is the attention of Gideon. The perfect, blonde boy she pines for. Unfortunately, her parents have other plans when they move away. Is it fate that brings Gideon back into Ivy's life? What about the Roux who was her first in all from the old neighborhood? Ivy's world collide when both men reenter her life and offer her different lifestyles and loves. What I like about this book is that the author elicits emotion. The characters are not very likable, but I prefer that to not having any opinion or emotion about the characters.

White Ivy is the latest book pick from the #readwithjenna book club. I normally love her picks, so I eagerly picked this story up. It didn’t live up to the level of her other picks for me. ⁣
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Ivy is a Chinese American who from a very young age learns to steal and take what she wants. She grew up in a poor family who sent her to a fancy private school where she met Gideon, the boy who would forever represent the epitome of perfection and success. And while the writing is good and there is an element of thrill to the book, the characters fell flat for me and there was never an element of surprise. ⁣
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There was nothing about Ivy that I could relate to which would have worked for me if there were surprising elements to her character. I felt like the characters were stereotypes of characters rather than characters with depth. It effected the way I felt about the book and for me, it missed the mark

“White Ivy” is a coming-of-age story from the prizewinning Chinese American author, Susie Yang. The protagonist is Ivy Lin, a young girl who immigrates from China to Boston, Massachusetts. She has a hard time finding her way as a young elementary student and middle schooler. To create a sense of excitement, she learns to shoplift from her grandmother and her neighbor, Rouz. Her parents want her to stay away from Rouz, so she’s sent to a wealthy school on scholarship. Then suddenly, at age 14, Ivy is invited into a popular social circle by the crush-worthy Gideon Speye. But when Ivy is caught lying about a sleepover at Gideon's, and her parents find her diary, she’s sent to live in China with relatives.

Flash-forward to Ivy’s post-collegiate life and she reunites with Gideon unexpectedly. He admits she always seemed “different” and intriguing, and they become an item. Quickly she’s caught up in his wealth, all while dealing with her shame, lies and embarrassment.

Before we know it, the secrets of Ivy’s past come to haunt her. Can she keep her past and present from Gideon? Will she find herself and determine what she really wants? Or fall into the trap of wealth and prestige?

There’s an interesting twist at the end that just may leave you thinking about Ivy long after you finish the last chapter.


Special thanks to Simon & Schuster for sharing an electronic copy of this book, via NetGalley, in exchange my honest review.

Twisted, disturbing, funny, shocking. This is a novel with an anti-heroine (not a spoiler; the dust jacket describes Ivy Lin as a liar and a thief). This is not a prototypical immigrant story of cultural assimilation but one that keeps Ivy’s Chinese heritage front and center (specifically, hard knock life lessons imparted by her grandmother and later, her mother, become Ivy’s roadmap for survival). Ivy is a cunning, self-centered girl who desperately wants (without fully realizing) a life of creature comforts and privilege. This is manifested in the existence of Gideon Speyer and his WASP family, pure upper crust breeding who fascinate Ivy and in turn, welcome her in with open arms. But a childhood friend- a deeply troubled boy turned Ivy’s first lover-pops up unexpectedly to put a wrench in Ivy’s perfect life with the Speyers. Ivy’s sense of self-control and awareness of right vs (serious) wrong disintegrates as the novel wears on. The ending few chapters will make you gasp and there are twists that many will not have seen coming. Overall, a definite page-turner and written with darkly comic wit. Impressive debut novel. I only gave it four stars as the lead character was too polarizing for me to care deeply about her or her fate.

Wow! What a story! I could not put this book down and read it in 2 days! A fabulous story that kept me on the edge of my seat! I followed the highs and lows along with Ivy. I have known plenty of Roux's in my life and I felt such empathy with her. The families had so many issues and Susie Yang has written a novel of immensity that is incredibly visual. I felt the heat and cold while reading about the mountains or the islands. This has got to be one of the best books of 2020. Thank you to Netgalley and
Simon and Shuster Publishing for the eGalley of White Ivy!!! What a fantastic book!

This is the story of Ivy, a Chinese immigrant in the US who desperately wants to assimilate and be like her wealthy white peers. While I think this story had a lot of promise, it ultimately didn't work for me. The timeline jumped around in ways that felt confusing, and by the end Ivy as a character was so unlikeable it was almost unrealistic. No spoilers but she makes a VERY QUESTIONABLE decision that just had me like ??????????
That said it was an interesting enough story. hence 3 stars.

This book was a remarkable character study of a complicated personality. Ivy Lin was not your typical immigrant nor was her story. I certainly couldn't put the book down and the suspense was palpable.. However, something was missing for me. Perhaps the constant disregard for anyone and the darkness that prevailed was a bit too much. Yet, if you can't stop reading, the author certainly has a way with words.

I don't even know where to start with this review because this debut novel has me all over the place. White Ivy was so much more complex than I expected with each character and the interactions between them heavily hung with thoughts unsaid and hidden motives. I won't lie, it took me a while to warm up to Ivy and I wasn't sure I even liked the story at first.

The longer I read though, the more connected I felt to her and the more desperately I wanted her to figure out what she herself wanted for herself, without all the trappings of family, society, race, and her own old dreams clogging the way. The last third of the novel really picked up the pace and I seriously couldn't set it down in the final sprint of chapters. I won't say I was surprised (the thriller reader in me gets a kick out of trying to solve plot riddles beforehand) but that didn't make the moments any less impactful. If anything it made the anticipation of watching Ivy carry out her plans that much more satisfying.

White Ivy is definitely unlike anything I've read this year and that is meant as a huge compliment. It's certainly a story and a protagonist that will stay with me a long time as I finished reading it days ago and am still enthralled by it. I'm not one to re-read books but this one I absolutely could because there's so much to take in. What a killer debut! I can't wait to see what else the author has in store for us readers in the future.

Note: I received a free electronic edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for the honest review above. I would like to thank them, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to do so.

Thank you for sharing this title with me. I'm sure I'm going to be in the minority with my two stars. The writer knows how to write, but I was hoping for a story that produced more of a gripping tale. It was rather slow with a flat storyline. I didn't care for any of the characters and so I was not invested at all in their wayward lives.

Wow — this was an incredible read. White Ivy is the story of a young Chinese-American girl who grows into a selfish and amibitous young woman. It is a fascinating look at race and social class, with an emphasis on white privilege and what it means to be privileged and why that privilege is so alluring. I wanted to like Ivy as a character, but I honestly didn’t, as I felt she was incredibly self-centered and self-serving. Don’t look for redemption or pureness of heart in this novel — it is somewhat dark, at times almost gritty, and yet so true in its depictions and story that you can’t help but be awed by it. An incredible first novel, Yang has a way or presenting action in a paragraph and then ending with a sentence or two of analysis that gets right to the core of the emotion and motives of the characters.

Unforgettable — definitely will be on my top reads list of 2020.

Thank you for my review copy!

This book wasn’t anything like what I was expecting. On some level, I’m glad I went into it knowing very little about the plot because it allowed me to be surprised at each turn, and this book, while not long, manages to take you on a lot of them.

Ivy Lin is a fascinating narrator. She is unreliable, at times downright contemptible, and infuriating. But she’s a fighter, clawing to emerge from her parents’ struggles to escape poverty in China and their struggles to realize the American Dream. You sometimes want to strangle her, and sometimes want to cheer her on. She makes so many bad choices in the service of being who she thinks she should be, what her family holds her back from being—“White Ivy.”

Her idealization of Gideon Speyer, how much she wants to be with the image of him and his family, and the lengths that she’s willing to go to in order to keep that picture-perfect family, is a wild ride. And alongside of this, Ivy’s family comes into wealth and starts to be a family that fits Ivy’s image of what it means to be truly American.

This book defies characterization. It’s a coming of age story, for sure, and it’s a character study, but there’s definitely a thriller element that I wasn’t expecting infused in the second half of the book. The twists weren’t all that hard to see coming, but watching Ivy flail was fascinating and entertaining for sure. This book deals with how women hold families together and the illusion of the immigrant experience in America. I finished the book and said out loud, “that was a weird book, but not weird bad!” I can’t say I loved it, or even liked it when the characters are all so hard to root for, but for the last 1/3, I didn’t want to put it down.

White Ivy is a coming of age story about a girl obsessed with fitting in and who will go to many lengths to do so. When she is younger, she steals and lies to get the things she wants, including to win the heart of her crush, Gideon. After she comes back from a summer trip to China, she finds her family has moved and she loses touch with Gideon, only to be reconnected many years later when they have grown up. Ivy again is sucked into the glamorous world of Gideon’s family, but she will soon learn that she can’t escape her past.

This is a character-driven story about an immigrant family and wealth. Ivy is not a likable character, but I thought the author did a phenomenal job making you feel for her at times despite her decisions. Well written and thought provoking- I highly recommend for anyone who likes character-driven, coming of age stories (as long as you don’t mind an unlikable protagonist).

Thank you to the publisher via NetGalley for a copy of this buzzy novel to review!

White Ivy was a sort of a “slow paced thriller” but in the best way possible. The author spent a lot of time on character developments; which really added interesting layers to the story. Ivy grew up as a poor immigrant child and all she ever wanted was everything she did not have. She wanted the houses, clothes, vacations and even parents of the upper class kids she grew up around. Ivy particularly focuses on her school crush Gideon. Ivy’s family suddenly moves a couple of states away and Ivy is definitely not happy with her even less glamorous life and she is distraught to be so far away from Gideon. The story focuses a lot on Ivy and her struggles to fit in. Later in her adult life, Ivy runs back into Gideon and they fall happily in love and all of Ivy’s dreams become reality. But after all these years, is it enough for Ivy? How far will she go to live her picture perfect life?

This was a really well-written book with an interesting perspective. I enjoyed not only the character development as the plot progressed, but the development of different characters' perceptions of each other. While the plot itself is seemingly an old and well-worn story - social-climbing girl from a tough background callously uses the people around her to achieve a comfortable life - the framing is what makes this feel fresh and original. This and the writing make the book highly readable in the beginning and end, but the middle does suffer a bit from pacing issues, as for a while it seems there is no particular conflict left to resolve. During that time I was thinking this would be a 3-star book, but the end is suspenseful, chilling, and not what I expected for several reasons.

White Ivy is an outstanding debut novel from Susie Yang. It is more of a coming-of-age story than a thriller: however, Yang does an amazing job of drawing the reader in to Ivy and her family's lives. Ivy is taught by her grandmother to steal and that ends up affecting Ivy's life for many years. Yang also weaves in so much important information regarding Chinese culture. I would highly recommend this book! I loved it! Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

From newcomer Susie Yang comes WHITE IVY, a dark and dazzling debut about the lines between wealth and poverty, obsession and infatuation, honesty and truth.

Raised by Chinese American immigrants in a small town outside of Boston, Ivy Lin is born into a lifetime of contradictions. Her family is poor and quick to discipline, but their expectations for her are sky-high: a full-ride to an elite university, a doctorate and a perfect family. Although they are able to enroll her in a prestigious prep school, they shudder and scold her when she tries too hard to conform with her privileged peers. Her parents complain about scraping by, but balk at the thought of her getting a job to help them with the bills. Then there’s her grandmother, Meifeng, a seemingly innocent old lady who spends her weekends pilfering from secondhand stores and garage sales. She explains away her misdeeds as being equally as bad as the Americans who were so careless with their items that they did not notice her thefts.

Growing up as an outsider in every sense of the word, Ivy's feeling of emptiness blooms into wanting more. Educated by her grandmother in the act of petty theft, she follows suit, amassing a collection of trendy American clothes, home electronics and other items of teenage social currency. But fitting in is not her only desire: Ivy is hopelessly, endlessly in love with Gideon Speyer, the town golden boy. Just when she feels their orbits colliding, her mother catches on to her schemes and sends her to China to reevaluate her priorities.

When Ivy returns to America the following autumn, her family has moved from Massachusetts to New Jersey, and her dreams of securing Gideon evaporate. With the single-minded focus of a girl obsessed, she hunkers down and studies, flitting from boyfriend to boyfriend until she gains entry to a women’s college, eventually settling down as a teacher in Boston. It is here where she bumps into Sylvia Speyer, Gideon’s sister, and the chance encounter feels like fate --- a reckoning with all that the universe owes her. With the social-climbing skills of a femme fatale and the ability to mold herself to nearly any scenario, Ivy soon finds herself dating Gideon and ensconced in his thoroughly American family --- and all of the skeletons in their closets.

However, what Ivy couldn’t have planned for is the resurgence of another character from her lowly past in Massachusetts: her childhood neighbor, Roux. Roux was the only person who saw her --- truly saw her --- when she was just the strange “exotic” girl in their classroom. He knows all about her past, including the petty thefts and dalliances with romance, and now he, too, has become an extra limb on the Speyer family tree. With her past and present rapidly colliding, and her dark side threatening to take control, Ivy must decide what is really worth fighting for and what her experiences have made her become.

WHITE IVY is a slow-burn novel with an eerie tone that is as literary as it is thrilling. In case it was not clear already, Ivy is not a likable character, nor is she someone you want to root for. And yet, through Yang’s deft combination of themes of classism and tokenism and Ivy’s very human yearnings for success and privilege, she becomes a bit of an antihero, a reminder of the draw of power and those who wield it. But what truly sets the book apart from other novels with unlikable protagonists and social climbers is Ivy’s astute observations on wealth. She knows --- has always known --- that her peers are privileged and powerful, but although she covets their wealth, she also sees that their senses of comfort and ownership in the world come from their whiteness and a shared history of coming out on top.

Ivy’s breathless pursuit of the American dream is not an unfamiliar story, but in Yang’s hands it is fresh and unflinching. Her dangerous obsession is laid bare for readers to see every ugly, greedy thought, and somehow she is never portrayed as villainous or callous. She is merely responding to the world of contradictions around her and finding the small pockets where she can reclaim some power.

The reemergence of Roux creates a bit of a love triangle in Ivy’s life that added some real depth to WHITE IVY. After watching Ivy play her role as the social climber for so long, it was exhilarating to see her passion play out on the page. That said, it took so long to get there that I fear some readers will abandon the novel too early. Without a murder or mass catastrophe, its slow burn can sometimes feel draining, and although Yang’s prose is lyrical and poetic, there is a lack of action in the middle of the book that her clever turns of phrase cannot always support.

WHITE IVY is a shocking and subversive novel, as well-suited to fans of GONE GIRL as it is to readers of THE TALENTED MISS FARWELL. Filled with keen and searingly timely insights on the immigrant experience in America, the stark contrasts between social classes, and the ways that women must bend themselves to society's expectations, it is a perfect study of the American dream --- and the nightmare that often greets those trying to achieve it.