I really enjoyed The Ivies by Alexa Donne. The plot was fast-paced, the characters flawed, and the concept super intriguing.

The Ivies is set at Claflin Academy, the boarding school that prides itself on being the premier launchpad for Seniors to enter the Ivy League. What the pamphlets (featuring almost every single BIPOC student even though they represent the smallest percentage of attendees) do not advertise is the cutthroat, hyper-focused, group of saboteurs that pride themselves on being the sole reason for their peers' failure: The Ivies. These girls are Mean Girls 3000 and they are not here to play.

Donne weaves a brilliant tapestry of deceit, tumult, plotting, with sprinkles of satire, mystery, and oh yeah, murder.

The characters in The Ivies are all fully-fleshed and captivating even though you know they are terrible. But that's kind of ingenious because you, as the reader, find yourself rooting for them, even if their success means someone else's downfall. And I believe that is pretty much the point: we will do what is necessary to survive in the current climate of our society.

The premise of The Ivies is that this group of Mean Girls 3000 has the money, resources, and connections to sweep away any potential threats to their ascension to the colleges of their choice. All of the girls, except Olivia, come from families with an ungodly amount of money. Everything is all well and good in this private-boarding school book of schemes until one of The Ivies is found murdered on campus. Then all eyes are on the friend group as primo suspects.

It's a highly engaging read and I know my students will love it.

I enjoyed this. It was an intriguing, quick read that kept me engrossed from beginning to end. I would recommend this.

I really ended up enjoying this book! I was going into it expecting sassy drama with a thriller edge and I was not disappointed. Trying to puzzle through figuring out this friend group and their dynamic was a wild ride.

There were so many ups and downs in this book and it was fun to try and piece together what you thought was happening while reading and discovering the truth and where the plot was really going to take you.

Its hard to go much deeper into a review without giving anything away because this is a thriller book. Most thrillers I read involve and older audience so it was fun to see a younger audience for this one.

One thing I know for sure. I would not be friends with the Ivies.

As you might know, The Ivies was one of my most anticipated releases of 2021! I absolutely love books with boarding school settings and one of my favourite genres is mystery so this sounded like a dream come true! I quickly became hooked while reading this and became immersed in the story quickly. Our main character Olivia has a very authentic voice and made for a great narrator and guide through the world of Claflin Academy. I thought that all of the characters, especially the rest of The Ivies were very authentic and were easy to picture as being real people. I felt that the progression of the mystery was very well paced and did not drag at any point.

Throughout the book we learn the many secrets and dark underbelly of the academy which kept me flipping through the pages. I enjoyed all of the plot twists and didn't see many of them coming. However the conclusion to this mystery felt a bit predictable to me and unrealistic. I found that many of the choices in the conclusion, including those of the main character, to be frustrating but I could see why they happened. Overall I had a great time reading The Ivies and found it to be very entertaining.

I recommend this to fans of Truly Devious!

At Claflin Academy, a group of 5 girls who call themselves The Ivies, have one mission: to make it to an Ivy League School. They will stop at nothing in order to get to the top, including...murder?

This was enjoyable for what it was, but I wouldn't say its anything super memorable. It would definitely make a fun TV show though! I love the boarding school vibes of this, its one of my favourite settings to read! Some of the characters were a bit annoying, and I wasn't a fan of them. A lot of the characters were pretty one-dimensional though, and there wasn't really any development by the end of the story. The book goes by so quickly, and its such an easy read, I read it in one sitting!

Overall, it was fun while it lasted!

This was a really fun whodunnit novel. The Ivies gives off Pretty Little Liar vibes so if readers were into that (I was) then they’ll love it. The novel moved quickly and had strong, engaging plot points throughout to keep me invested. Some parts were a little predictable, but I think teens Kay not pick up on it as quickly and the predictability did not take away from the ending. Overall a great book and I’m excited to refer it to students!

I am always going to be a sucker for a book about boarding schools/cliques at elite schools. It is so far from my high school experience, and it just fascinates me.

The Ivies by Alexa Donne focuses in on a group of girls who are so set on going to an ivy league school that they'd do anything to get in...even kill?

Avery, Emma, Olivia, Margot and Sierra are friends - or, at least they are keeping each other close. They've each chosen (or been assigned) an ivy league school with the theory being that universities like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale won't accept multiple students from their high school so they've got to spread their reach. When legacy Avery doesn't get her self-claimed spot at Harvard, there's hell to pay.

What we have is a thriller that's been done before but is still engaging. I'll look forward to reading more from Donne.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

I think I'd recommend that teens reading it are a little savvy , because this is a shocker in terms of what people are willing to do to get ahead. But the plot was good, the characters believable, if a little bit "Riverdale". For a parent, it's a "please don't let this be happening to MY child"! The casual way some of the "tricks" were accomplished is seriously scary! Fast paced, interesting read.

Thank you, NetGalley, Random House Children's and Crown Books for Young Readers, for the chance to read and review this book.

The Ivies at Claflin Academy are five girls, with a precise mission: to get into the Ivy League, using any means necessary. Olivia is one of them, even though she's different from her friends. She's on a scholarship, her family isn't rich, her life isn't glamorous as the others' ones. But Avery, Emma, Sierra and Margot they did and do anything to improve their own odds, disrupting class, uncovering cheaters, blackmailing other students and so on. College admissions are serious and sometimes deadly too. When someone dies, Olivia starts her investigations, doubting her friends, the school, her friendships.

Set on a boarding school and told by Olivia's POV, The Ivies is a thriller about teens ready to do anything in their power to get what they want, even kill. In a hyper-competitive school, the Ivies blackmail, hurt, hide, lie and even, maybe, kill. The story is intriguing, the sleuthing compelling and I liked how slowly every piece is unveiled and discovered and I enjoyed Olivia's relationship with Ethan, with the victim and the other Ivies.

I devoured it this book, full of plot twists and complex characters, because I was really curious to know what happened, the secrets and lies, slowly revealed to Olivia and the reader. But I couldn't fully relate to Olivia, even though she's an interesting and complex character. I didn't really like her attitude and how she acted, I couldn't fully like her and that prevented me to love fully this book. The ending was a bit disappointing, too, but overall, it was a nice read and a creepy and intriguing book.

The Ivies was a fantastic read. It kept me guessing the whole way through. I figured out a few of the twists, but not the entire mystery. It was a fun YA thriller.

This book was so full of twists and turns it was unputdownable. It kept me guessing right to the last page!! I do wish that the pacing would have kept up though out the entire story though. This was boring school thriller at its best.

The Ivies is not the only book that has taken a hard look at the current state of college admissions in the United States, but it does do a better job than most. I expected this one to be similar to Girls With Bright Futures, which it admittedly was, but I thought it was much more compelling.

As a huge fan of Karen M. McManus and Holly Jackson, this book was marketed for readers like myself, and I was not disappointed at all. There are a group of friends and the leader has assigned them their Ivy League school. They do some really not nice things to their competition in their private boarding school. When one of them ends up dead after getting into Harvard (not her assigned school), Olivia, our main narrator, does her own investigation. Olivia is a scholarship student who has never quite fit in with the Ivies.

Donne does a good job of making us not trust a single person. She throws in a complicated romantic situation, and it's honestly well done. I would recommend The Ivies to any YA mystery/thriller lover, like myself! Although some of it is predictable, I was still second-guessing everything until the very, very end.

(4.5)

At this point, my love for the boarding school murder mystery novel seriously needs no introduction. But I am still reeling from being able to get my hands on The Ivies early because this was by far one of my most anticipated reads of the entire year, and when I tell you it blew me away, I mean it.

For as much as I read these books for sheer pleasure, I also read them because I have spent essentially my entire life entrenched in elite education systems. Not boarding high school, no, but a lifetime of private school then public high school in a very privileged area and then an expensive and elite small liberal arts college. And now I’m considering a whole ass Ph.D. I’ve never really known my life outside of some form of the ivory tower, so when YA started to interrogate and reveal its rotten roots, I ate it up. I continue to eat it up. I don’t just love the murder and mayhem—I’m here for the inherent sociopolitical commentary. And no one has delivered on it as well as Alexa Donne has.

I thank Donne’s history as a private college admissions essay consultant for much of the brilliance of this novel. She has seen, firsthand, what wealth and privilege can do in college admissions; she has borne witness to the bloodbath. Of all the YA boarding school murder mystery novels I have read, this is the only one that I’ve seen deal comprehensively and consistently with the pervasive issue of class. It’s the foundation for these novels, yet too often writers shy away from dealing with it (and the racial, political, and socioeconomic issues that naturally come alongside it). While I remain endlessly tired of the “scholarship kid” protagonist and hope authors begin to look for ways to tell these stories without relying on some kind of “Other,” I’m glad Donne made you actively deal with and confront Olivia’s Other-ized status throughout the entire novel. That’s far more than many have done in the past.

While I can’t give anything away about the crime and the mystery, of course, Donne built on that expansive critique of the system with a scathing and uncomfortably realistic killer reveal, if one a bit rushed. This novel did not just address privilege as a force in the background—it was at the heart of the crime itself. As it should be, and is.

This novel was standard in many ways, but at no point not intriguing. It kept you hooked. I loved how realistically, accurately nasty The Ivies got with each other, that there was no reliance on some decades-long secret society type plot but just five ruthless and seemingly untouchable girls. I loved watching the mystery unfold, and though it relied on some of the tropes we want, need, and expect, it was still so good and solid. The one thing I hated? It kept bringing up COVID-19, which I think had no place here. It took you out of the insidious timelessness of the boarding school setting and mention of it will age and place this novel in a strange, unnecessary way. Also, can’t we all just get some entertainment without the need for random mention of COVID in works to come, please?

Overall, I am just simply in the palm of this book’s hands and I cannot wait to see what Donne does next and for years to come. I hope authors of these types of novels in the future will take serious notes.

Avery, Emma, Olivia, Margot and Sierra are collectively known as The Ivies. They're also lowkey feared by their peers at the prestigious Claflin Academy. This tight group of five all have the same goal: acceptance into an ivy league school. Knowing the ins-and-outs of college admissions, the girls have agreed to all apply ED to different Ivies.

Their reasoning is, if they all apply to separate schools they won't be competing directly against one another and therefore, will up their chances of acceptance. Avery Montfort, the Regina George of the group, has claimed Harvard as hers.

On Early Decision day, it is revealed that Emma had secretly applied to Harvard and gotten accepted. While normally this would be cause for celebration, Avery did not get in and thus, blames Emma. Enraged, Avery confronts Emma at a party and the two girls get into a fight. Ultimately, storming off to separate corners.

Olivia, our main character, watches the drama unfold from the sidelines. She secretly applied to Harvard as well, and got in, but there is no way she is telling Avery that! The following morning, Emma is found dead. Olivia is shocked. Could Avery have possibly been angry enough to kill their friend over a college admission?

In the high-stakes world of cut-throat academics, it's definitely possible. Olivia begins to doubt her place within the Ivies. It seems the other girls have been doing a lot of things behind her back. When it becomes clear the police may flub it up, Olivia decides to team up with her cute co-editor of the school paper, Ethan, and investigate Emma's death herself.

With a boarding school setting, loads of rich people drama and solid amateur sleuthing, The Ivies pairs some of my favorite tropes together into a red herring-filled, satirical romp through upper-class teenage lives.

It's pure mean girl chaos at its best!

While it did start out a little slow for me, once Emma's body is found, everything heats up quite nicely. From there, the pace is steady and twisty until the over-the-top conclusion! I definitely recommend this to anyone who loves rich teen drama.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Crown Books for Young Readers, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I had a lot of fun with this one and appreciate the opportunity!

The moment I read this book's description I knew I had to read it. I'm a fan of YA/NA and since this is a thriller that takes place in a boarding school, I knew it was something I was going to love.

This is a murder mystery that will keep you guessing until the end. Their are toxic friendships, scheming, sabotage and elitism.

As the quintessential scholarship kid at a private boarding school, it's easy to guess what is going to happen to the main character.

Each character is well-rounded and the story is written with just the right amount of detail. I highly recommend this one if you are a fan of YA mystery.

I received a digital advanced reader's copy through NetGalley.

I'd probably go 3.5 stars if I could. I love, love, love books that take place at boarding schools, especially if they're about how awful and spoiled most of the kids at the boarding school are. This book was very plot driven which is true of most thrillers, and a couple of the characters were a little flat. Margot, in particular, kept slipping my mind completely, and I don't think I could tell you one thing about her. That said, I blew through this book, the story moved quickly, and there were a couple of good twists. It's a little mature for my students, but I'd recommend it to the librarians at the high schools in my district for sure. I could see a lot of teens really loving it.

If you love mean girl drama, elite boarding schools, and murder mysteries you must read this! I absolutely love boarding school dramas and this one was no exception. There were so many twists in this one that every time I thought I knew who the killer was there was another surprise. It definitely kept me guessing right up til the end. I also liked how it was relatively relatable with the semi-recent college admission scandals. I did take off one star because there were a few spots where the pacing was a little slow. Overall I adore this book and highly recommend it as a great summer read.

The Ivies was ALOT of fun. My former PLL heart was screaming for more the whole way throughout as I picked up on small clues subtly hinted towards throughout. Alexa Donne mananages to throw in numerous unexpected twits which leave should guessing the whole way throughout but honestly the most shocking part of the novel was how you feel about each one of The Ivies at the end of the novel. This book is perfect for anyone looking for a fast-paced YA thriller reminiscent of the PLL ERA. Move over little liars as the ivies might just take your spot.

I hate to say this but I wonder if maybe I'm getting too old for boarding school books? This has typically been a genre of interest to me, but lately I find myself thinking "ugh, why are they acting this way??" when I read anything about girls in boarding/prep school. This is the story of five friends at an elite prep school in Massachusetts, all of whom are destined for specific Ivy League schools. Nicknamed "the Ivies" by their classmates, four of the girls are super rich and one, the main character, who is a scholarship student. They have spent three years plotting to knock out their competition through extremely shady means - catfishing, seduction, adding extra calories to rivals' protein shakes, administering laxatives to ruin someone's ACT scores... you get the picture. They're all pretty much terrible people, and some of their classmates are less than surprised when one of them turns up dead, the victim of a homicide. Some good twists and turns mystery wise, but I just had a hard time with these characters - even the main character, who is the most sympathetic (the other Ivies often leave her out of their most upsetting sabotage), is still not very sympathetic. But maybe that's the point?

This book was good. At first I thought it was too detailed, but it was interesting the way the plot went. It kept my attention and I read it in two days.