The Ivies, Olivia, Emma, Avery, Sierra, and Margot, are the queens of Claflin Academy. They have done everything they could to ensure that they would each get into the Ivy League school of their choice. Olivia, though, is an outsider. While rest of the Ivies are rich and come from powerful families, Olivia is a scholarship student who will do whatever it takes to get into her dream school. On the day Early Decision college acceptances come out, secrets are revealed and trusts are broken. At the end of the night, one of the Ivies ends up dead. Olivia, along with her her newspaper co-editor Ethan, starting digging into the murder to find out what really happened. The more she digs though, the more danger she finds herself in.

This was a phenomenal YA thriller. Although the main character starts out unlikable, as the book progresses, it reveals more layers to her character and really made you root for her. This book has a lot of twists, turns, red herrings, missed clues, and a lot of suspense that really kept me invested in the book. I have read a lot of YA thrillers, and this one really did keep me guessing until the very end. There were so many betrayals, secrets, and deceptions that it added so many layers to each of the characters. The boarding school setting also made it more interested it kept all the characters and suspects together. There were a few things that made me a little uncomfortable, but overall, this was a fantastic read and I highly recommend.

To be honest, I wasn't very impressed by the first twenty pages or so. Olivia, the protagonist, is like every white girl in a book like this one: the poor scholarship girl who doesn't quite fit in with her group of friends. But there's something about this book that just kind of... sucks you in and keeps you hooked long after you thought you would have walked away.

Don't get me wrong: this is a fairly predictable book with some easy to spot plot twists (called the murderer right after the body was discovered). But there's plenty of red herrings to keep you guessing, and some delightful twists and turns that I didn't see coming.

Olivia has a pretty interesting journey, and I was happy to see realistic consequences for her and her friends given what happens in this book. Overall, this was a well-written book with great structure, likable (if slightly predictable) characters, and a solid mystery to keep readers engaged.

Fans of Truly Devious and A Good Girl's Guide to Murder will really enjoy this one when it comes out later this year.

This book is awesomely twisted! The Ivies tells the story of a group of five classmates-can they really call themselves friends?- who will lie, cheat, steal, backstab, and do just about anything else the need to in order to better their standing among their competitors when it comes to applying to the most prestigious colleges. Each has been designated an Ivy League College to apply to and each has bent and broken more than her fair share of rules in order to get accepted. When one ends up dead after getting accepted, seemingly everyone on campus is a suspect, but none more-so than the Ivies themselves!

Olivia, Avery, Emma, Sierra, and Margot seem to have it all. They are the queen bees of Claflin Academy. They know what they want and they will step on anyone to get it. Can they withstand a murder investigation of one of their own?

The twists and turns and the shocking truth will keep the reader not only guessing, but second and triple guessing until the very end. This book is a sure-fire hit! Thank you to Random House Children's Publishing for granting me an ARC. Decision Day is May 25, 2021 for everyone to pick up a copy of The Ivies!

Olivia Winters is a member of The Ivies, 5 girls who each claim their “spot” at an Ivy League school before Early Decision Day. They promise to never get in each other’s way, and they do whatever it takes to make sure nobody else gets in their way. But when Olivia secretly applies to Harvard and gets in, she’s worried what Avery, the triple legacy and sole owner of the Harvard spot, will say. But on the night of the big ED party, Emma also reveals she got into Harvard, and Averys Harvard rejection sends her into a tirade. When Emma’s body is found floating in the crew pool the next morning, Olivia can’t help but wonder if she will be next. And she will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of Emma’s death. But is what she uncovers along the way worth knowing? Or she is better off in the dark?

Do you remember the movie Mean Girls? This is a mean girls story with an academic mission. The story was smart, addictive, and definitely shocking! The characters get under your skin, they are ruthless and twisted.
The girls are twisted and will do anything and I mean anything to get into thier dream college, even murder. This is a great whodunit type of book, the twist and the shocks keep coming. Olivia is at a boarding school where she and her friends are all trying to get into one of their Ivy League colleges but when things turn deadly for the group of friends Olivia is trying to figure out who killed one of their own as well as what other secrets they are hiding from one another.
If you love YA thrillers or even thrillers in general this one's for you I would definitely recommend it!

Getting into Ivy League schools is tough, but these girls make it cut throat. Olivia is part of an elite group at her school known as The Ivies. Each member has been selected to apply to one of the Ivy League schools and they will stop at nothing to make sure they get in. When one of The Ivies turns up dead after admitting she got in to the school she wasn't meant to apply to, Olivia will launch her own investigation to clear, or maybe convict, the other members of the group. A classic murder mystery, this book is thrilling, fast-paced, and has the perfect amount of twist in the storyline to keep even the best guesser on their toes.

The Ivies is one of the more realistic YA thrillers I've read in recent memory, almost too realistic. You can tell Donne must have background/experience in the college admissions world, because she captures the pathos of teens who think getting into the right college is everything almost perfectly. The characters are pretty well-rounded, although Margot and Sierra still fall into certain stereotype traps as the Asian and Black characters in the clique. I also think it's a bit uncomfortable how their character arcs turn out in contrast to Avery, who's White. None of the characters are particularly likeable, which is fine. Olivia works as a protagonist, although she's the standard "working class girl who falls in with the rich girls" MC.

I have mixed feelings about the ending. On the one hand, I love how realistic it was in reflecting the ways rich people escape consequences. However, it was almost too realistic in that it wasn't satisfying to see where all the characters ended up, even if that's how real life is. The killer's motivation was on the weak side, but the ride to ge there was good. Overall, I enjoyed The Ivies. It's an easy read with a fast-paced story.

As a certain conniving little b**ch likes to say..."remarkable."

Will keep your blood pressure dangerously high and your productivity at an all time low. That means, cancel your plans cause you're going to want to read this in one sitting.

If you love ONE OF US IS LYING, you're going to devour THE IVIES. It's a who-dun-it that's nearly impossible to guess. Trust no one. Anyone could be out for your neck, that's my take-away. As a prep-school graduate this hit all the marks and triggered one too many high-school memories. A hard-hitter. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Great book! The twists and turns get you every time. You never see the end coming at all. Great read!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
What a fabulous read!!
I was pleasantly surprised to read this new-to-me author, Alexa Donne. The premise of this novel was expertly woven in this tale of high society girls doing bad things to further themselves and earn acceptance into the Ivy League colleges. Who knew what a twisted world this could be?!?!
The Ivies was the balm to my reading slump, and now I feel revived!

3.5/5 stars. - To Be Released in May 2021.
Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

Well, this was a fun read. A combination of Mean Girls, boarding school, and murder sets this stage for this page turner. A group of friends at elite private school manipulate and screw around with their classmates test scores, class rankings, and extracurriculars, all for the sake of giving themselves a better show at being accepted to one of the Ivy League schools. The girls, known as The Ivies, have each set their sights on one of the Ivy League colleges. Acceptance is already tough but when someone steals your coveted acceptance spot? Well, who knows how far someone will go seek revenge.

This was a fun read. It definitely has a lot of up to date things happening, like how COVID disrupted a previous semester, lots of mentions of Google Docs and social media (no TIkTok though! Interesting...). The story started off simply but built and twisted as you keep reading. Most of the characters are straight up awful to one another. I did pull it down in ratings to a 3.5 vs. a 4 because I "figured it out" and I NEVER figure it out!

I loved this book. Excellent twists and turns, and it was gloriously cut throat. If you like a good YA thriller, this is your book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book started strong, but as it went on, it fell flat for me. As this book got closer to the end, I found it a bit obvious and easy to guess. It wasn't a terrible book, but I think that the emotional grey area that the characters had could have been done a bit better. I also think that some details weren't entirely needed and just seemed to have been added for plot twists. Overall, you should give this book a shot if you enjoy Karen McManus's work.

As someone who applied to Ivy League schools and attended one, I can say college admissions were intense then and they are probably worse now. From my college friends that went to similar boarding schools, I can attest that sabotaging and breaking friendships over colleges is not unheard of, and maybe even more common than we think. Of course, there wasn't any murder that I heard of. Alexa Donne captured very well the intensity that is college admissions. While you are experiencing them yourself, there is nothing more important that getting the congratulations email. I wanted to just hug the students at this school and tell them that the name of the college isn't worth all of this. Because even though they were fiction characters, I think we all know high school seniors like them that put all their eggs in one basket (or college in this case).

Mysery-wise I think the story was well built. The suspense built up and there was never a second I thought any of the characters were safe. It was a fast-paced story that didn't let you put the book down even for a second. So many twists and turns I didn't see coming.

I appreciated how Alexa Donne acknowledged that these characters were very exaggerated forms of the overachiever Ivy-bound student. I could tell from her writing and references that Alexa Donne has experience with students applying to these types of schools. Her mentions of College Confidential made me break out into sweats from anxiety I did not know I still held for that site even years later. Overall, I think this extreme college admissions story is built in enough reality, but also some absurd drama that will make high school students both relate to the characters, but also see how absurd the college admissions process can be.

Book Review for The Ivies by Alexa Donne
Full review for this title can be found at: @fyebooks on Instagram!

Misses the mark for me. The girls are not likable at all, the plot is meager, and the pacing too slow. I didn’t find anything to enjoy about this book.

A timely fictional story based on a true system, a biased admissions process, and unfair access the elite have to the Ivy universities. This fast-paced whodunnit will keep readers guessing and rethink the envy we have for the 1%.

Perfect recommendation for Karen M. McManus fans.

(current events reference COVID-19 Pandemic)

The Ivies was a fun and engaging read that had plenty of twists and turns throughout the plot. I began the novel thinking it was going to be a predictable thriller, however I was pleasantly surprised with the hidden and revealed moments of the text.

Most of the characters, I loved to hate but I really felt some empathy with the main character, Olivia who was stuck in a world that was not hers. This novel brimming with dark academia and ruthless ambition really pulls the reader in from the beginning and keeps the reader turning pages until the very end.

Mean Girls meets Karen McManus meets in The Ivies where 5 boarding school queens will do absolutely anything to get into the Ivy League school of their choice.

Olivia is the odd one out of the group as a scholarship student but still participates in the sabotage and underhanded exploits of The Ivies. However, she has no clue how much more the other four have done to get ahead. When one of the Ivies ends up dead, Olivia decides to discover the murderer and ends up learning more about her "friends" and herself than she could have ever bargained for.

Even if you discover the killer before they're revealed, the motive will still shock you.

Gimmie a murdering boarding school book and I'm a happy girl.

The Ivies</em> is a fun and surprising novel by Alexa Donne whose story encompasses romance, secret affairs, murder and mean girls all in one. I love a good boarding school book and this one is a step above. Rich with devious mean girls and lots of fun characters, no one is as they seem.

I'm not going to lie. About half way through the book I thought I knew what was going on.

But I didn't.

Like, not at all.

The beginning of the book is a solid set up for the story and you need it to really understand all of the craziness that happens. The beginning is part detective novel and the second half of the book is all thriller. I like how Olivia is not innocent, how she was just as flawed as the rest of the Ivies. I loved the mean girls. They're terrible, so so terrible. OMG It was a treat. Because we all know those girls and there's something fascinating and intriguing about them, how they veer so far.

I don't want to give anything away because I think you really have to read the book to enjoy the suspense. It's a fun murder mean girls mystery with so many twists, I was genuinely impressed with all of the threads the author kept going, intriguing me more and more every page.

Go get this one. It's perfect for a weekend.