Overall, I adored The Ivies. It has been a while since I read a good mystery, and this book made me fall in love with the genre all over again. It reminded me so much of Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard.

You can read my in-depth review here! http://www.regalreads.com/2021/05/26/book-tour-the-ivies-by-alexa-donne-review-giveaway/

Out of four Advanced Reader Copies from the YA Murder Mystery section, I thought "The Ivies" by Alexa Donne would interest me the least.
Well, I was wrong. So so wrong. It was my highlight out of those four. A real surprise.
I always call Murder Mystery my Guilty Pleasure because clichés and co don't bother while reading this kind of books. Quite the opposite.
But "The Ivies" played really well with these. Five girls, about to graduate, do everything they can to sabotage everything and everyone in order to get accepted to one of the Ivy Colleges. Until someone dies.
The Murder case is interestingly set up and really exciting. I also find the characters interesting. Some Rep is even present too and it highlights the privileges of rich, white students/learners. Again and again you find comments pointing out that more work is needed for marginalized people to get equal credit. Only to often being dismissed with "you only have that because you are privileged, because of the quota".
Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised by an interesting case, some typical high school drama, and constant little reminders that privilege isn't for everyone.
I liked the characters, the writing style and the plot. It was a really good read.

This was such a fun read! It's addictive and keeps you super engaged. The characters are extremely well developed. I wasn't as big of a fan of "One Of Us is Lying" like others are, so this was a HUGE win for me! I want more!

This book is #yabooks I was think it reminded me somehow of #karenmcmanus this book was an arc thanks to my friends at #netgalley #theivies #alexadonne #randomhousekids this book was written phenomenally well. I was trying to figure out who did it right up until the end and y’all 😱 #shocker. A group of girls known as the ivies try to control the school. A group of them figuring out statistics of whose going where. SAT scores. And if need be changing things up. When one Ivie turns up dead who can the other girls trust? As secrets become unlocked and the mystery unravels you will be so enraptured you won’t be able to put it down. Seriously. #buynow #netgalleyreads #bookstagrammer #readersofinstagram #netgalleyreview #readmorebooks #bookrecommendations

The cutthroat, ultra-privileged, ultra-petty, dark academia thriller of your dreams. Reminiscent of The Secret History and If We Were Villains, this book takes you on a journey of the competitive, brutal ordeal that is college admissions (at least for the students at Claflin Academy).

I was drawn to this because of my previous dark academia binges that had me grasping for any books with a murder at a small school, a close-knit, often shady group of students who are probably hiding something from the reader, and charismatic-but-equally-as-shady teachers or counselors. The Ivies did not disappoint, and set this murder mystery in a backdrop of the college admissions process, where students are willing to kill to get into the college or university of their dreams. Fast-paced and gritty, this book kept me turning the pages until way too late at night, up until the final reveals at its closing.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book.

This is a captivating mystery full of secrets, lies, and so many twists. Pretty much every character has something to hide, with the Ivies themselves concealing the most. The pressure the school and families puts on these students is insane and at a time when admissions scandals have recently rocked headlines it creates a really compelling setting. It was interesting to see not only the ruthless antics of the student body but also their softer side to these students that also showed the ways they were still relatable teenagers. This dynamic particularly made the friendship between Olivia and Avery particularly compelling. Overall it is an interesting mystery and kept me second guessing my instincts all the way to the end.

The perfect dark academia book I didn't know I needed. The characters are well-structured, dramatic, extreme and real. The plot had me on the edge of the seat. Set in a boarding school about ambitious girls determined to get into Ivy colleges and by determined I mean playing some dirty tricks.

I loved that Olivia jumped head-first into solving the mystery despite of her insecurities, her complex situation and all the short-comings she faced. Emma, Avery, Sierra and Morgan were all as real as it could get. None of them was straight out mean or angelic, they had their good and bad moments, strengths and weaknesses. I think the author portrayed perfectly how every person can be selfish, calculative yet also be forgiving and kind whether they're outwardly nice or mean.

And the ending was perfect! It was bitter-sweet and realistic.

Okay, yeah, this is one of those books where the characters are not exactly likable, and yet you can't look away. Even the main character has her flaws and makes choices that you are yelling at her to not do, although I do sympathize quite a bit with her. Or at least I understand why she makes those choices. But most of the time, you're just yelling at her to walk far far away because it would be healthier for her. While some of the elements of the story were pretty typical for the genre of YA mystery thriller/contemporary fiction, I found enough of it to be original that it kept my interest throughout. This would be a good beach read and I think people who enjoyed A Good Girl's Guide to Murder or One of Us Is Lying would probably enjoy this one. There are allusions to the college admissions scandal, as well as mention of the Corona Virus, so it's very clear it's a recent story and somehow it made it seem more realistic to me. Overall, I would say this is a solid 4 stars and I would absolutely read another book by this author.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book was so good! I loved how it kept me on my toes as far as figuring out who did it! Definitely recommend!

Admission to the Ivy Leagues is always high stakes, but especially for the Ivies at Claflin Academy. Nothing is more important than getting into the schools of their dreams and no crime is too big the make their aspirations come true, not even murder.

I love a good murder mystery, but unfortunately this one was just OK. The premise is great and I love the bitchiness of the the four girls the story is centered around. Even with all the backstabbing and twists and turns, the overall mystery just wasn't that mysterious.

Thank you to Net Galley for giving me an e-arc.

It seems like Mean Girls everywhere almost always come in groups of 4 or 5 and the Ivies falls right into that. Five girls desperate to get into Ivy league schools. They will stop at nothing to get rid of the comeption for an ivy league education. The girls are for the most part hard core and ruthless to get what they want. Like serious mean girls like worse than the mean girls in Jawbreaker (and I thought they were rough)

This kept me on the edge of my seat. There were a lot of moments when I thought I figured it out and then bam, I found out I was completely off base.

The girls, most of the girls were spot on with their roles to be honest. You have the leader who is the worst (looking at Chanel #1 from Scream Queens) and then of course one who is "nice" and really doesn't belong at all. In that sense, the book was cliche. You know the cliche in the cliques. There is super mean one, a the too smart for their own good and they know it character, the blah character, the seemling nice wrong who turns out to be bad, and then the one who is actually nice because they don't actually belong.

This book is actually twisted, fun and just a great escape!


"

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an early copy of The Ivies!

When asked about thrillers, I usually put them in three different categories:
- The ones where you figure out very early on who did it or what happened... and you’re actually right (those are the ones that usually aren’t very good)
- The ones where you think you’ve got it all figured out early on but the author proves you wrong brilliantly
- The ones where you just know you won’t understand a thing before the final plot twist, and you’re perfectly okay with it

The Ivies is part of that second category.
From very early on in the book, there’s a character introduced in a way that made me feel he was the guilty one, and I was very proud of myself for being an awesome Sherlock... Until I was proved wrong. Here goes my fancy detective hat.

This is what makes this so powerful and such a page turner. At every chapter, the author manages to make you doubt every little thing, and to introduce you to new details that are really important for the story – but also very easy to miss.
As far as the thriller side goes, it was just what I expect from a YA thriller: fun, sometimes scary, sometimes a bit too much, but really enjoyable.

The set of characters is pretty awesome too, though quite despicable. That main character has the perfect balance between "I want to hug her" and "please let me slap her".
For some others, you’ll definitely want to slap them. But in a good way. I guess.

Finally, it’s a really great look at how the US school system works. Though of course it’s pushed to the extreme, some parts of it are scarily believable. Poor students.

In short then: a thriller full of suspense, great characters and some teeny tiny romance. Loved it!

I love the whole prep/private school mystery genre so I was super excited to read this one and it did not disappoint! This is one of those stories that will suck you in and keep you reading! The mystery was really well done and it was super easy to suspect nearly everyone! The book is also a tiny bit ridiculous - I mean would people really kill each other just for a college spot? The author did a fantastic job developing each of the characters and giving them a lot of depth. Overall I really enjoyed it and if it sounds like it might interest you go for it!

Thank you so much to Crown Books for Young Readers and Netgalley for letting me read an ARC of The Ivies! This book came out on May 25th, so make sure y'all go grab it ASAP! I always find college decisions and prep and the pressure that people put on themselves for it fascinating. I mean let's also be real, I went to a crazy public high school school that also had Ivy quotas and people battling for class rank and everyone who wanted to be competitive was taking 8-10 APs, running clubs, playing sports and instruments, and just doing everything they could (besides sabotage) to get in where they wanted. We had our Harvards, our Yales, our MITs, our Princetons, our Browns, our Stanfords, a bunch of Dukes, along with all of the other crazy schools you can think of (I grew up in a college town, next to another university, with lots of people whose parents taught at one of the universities or worked in either of the university hospitals or big tech/pharma that we have around here, so lots of privilege and lots of opportunity for people to do some of those things they need to in order to go to one of those big name schools). Anyway, enough about my high school- let's talk about The Ivies!

The Ivies 5/5 Stars

Summary from Goodreads:

Everyone knows the Ivies: the most coveted universities in the United States. Far more important are the Ivies. The Ivies at Claflin Academy, that is. Five girls with the same mission: to get into the Ivy League by any means necessary. I would know. I’m one of them. We disrupt class ranks, club leaderships, and academic competitions…among other things. We improve our own odds by decreasing the fortunes of others. Because hyper-elite competitive college admissions is serious business. And in some cases, it’s deadly.
Alexa Donne delivers a nail-biting and timely thriller about teens who will stop at nothing to get into the college of their dreams. Too bad no one told them murder isn’t an extracurricular.

I really, really loved this book! Like incredibly so. Not only do I always love boarding school books (I don't know what it is, but something about the boarding school aesthetic just makes me so incredibly excited to read them), but a boarding school based thriller around college admissions?! Hello! Sign me up! I thought Olivia was a great main character and figuring out the clues with her and seeing who killed Emma and all of the secrets within Claflin Academy and how far the rich and influential will go to protect their own was so great. Alexa Donne wrote some amazing characters and you're really rooting for them and then something comes from left field and you're left going what the heck?! How could ______ do that???? And that ending/epilogue section was incredible. I'm not going to say what it was about, but man, I really felt for Olivia during so much of the book. And she herself was such a complex character- she definitely had her flaws and a huge chip on her shoulder because she was the scholarship kid, but she was also being manipulated by the people she thought were her friends for the past almost 3 years, which is pretty terrible, so maybe she can have that chip on her shoulder. I really did not like Margot at all- she seemed like such a stereotypical mean girl and there was so little substance to her even though she was supposed to be one of the smartest people in that school, but I know Alexa Donne mentioned that Margot was a talented actress, so it could also all be an act- ahhh my head hurts just thinking about it right now. Honestly, I know this is a standalone and I don't know where any more books in this world would even live, but I would really love another book in this world with cameos by these characters! I'm not done with Avery, Margot, Sierra, and Olivia yet!

The Ivies is a fabulous young adult thriller that exposes the cut-throat college admissions process and the lengths that some will go to ensure admission to the Ivies--the prestigious Ivy League schools that boast extreme competition and very small windows of admission.

Olivia, a scholarship student at the renowned private boarding school Claflin, knows that she just doesn't quite fit in with her rich and uber successful friends at Claflin, those dubbed "The Ivies." As Olivia continues to uncover more and more of the appalling acts and secrets buried beneath her friends' innocent and charming facades, she begins to see first-hand how college admissions, specifically those to Ivy League schools, can change a person, or at least expose a part of them which may have been dormant.

I devoured this book. The setting, the characters, who honestly aren't even likable but sure seem to be real, and the plot kept me reading. The thriller whodunit aspect was well plotted out, and I continued to guess and question, guess and question. I can see high school students absolutely loving this one! Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book released on Tuesday, May 25th, and I highly recommend picking it up!

This ya thriller is a compulsively readable story about five girls who have one goal, get into the Ivy League schools and make all their dreams come true. That is of course, untill admissions go sideways and one of them ends up dead.

Our intrepid narrator is Olivia, a member of The Ivies whose middle class upbringing and scholarship student status make her the outsider of the insular group. When both Olivia and one of the other Ivies Emma get admitted to Harvard on Early Decision, Emma ends up dead and the other Ivies are at the top of the suspect list.

Olivia, wondering if Emma might have been murdered because of her admission to Harvard, takes matters into her own hands to try and uncover the truth.

The book has a very claustrophobic setting, surrounded by prep school elitism, cutthroat competitiveness, and plenty of academic and personal sabotage. Reading about it all made me nostalgic for grad school admissions and my decision to avoid certain universities because of how competitive students in certain programs were.

Ultimately, The Ivies was 5🌟 of murdery fun, with plenty of twist and turns. While I guessed the big reveal of the novel, I still really enjoyed this one and recommend for anyone who loves books like One Of Us Is Lying and Pretty Little Liars.

Loved this book, reminded me of "One of Us is Lying". Liked how it acknowledged that we went through a pandemic and how real it was with the competition to get into college. I also liked how the ending was not sanitized and wrapped up with a beautiful bow.

Olivia is one of The Ivies: the infamous clique at Claflin Academy known for its members’ mission of going Ivy League – and the lengths they’ll go to achieve it. They spend their days subtly sabotaging their classmates to steal themselves the coveted club leadership roles and academic awards so that they look more impressive for college admissions. To avoid any competition between themselves they’ve all been assigned one Ivy League to aim for – decided on by the group leader, Margot.

But Olivia’s not quite like the rest of them, she’s a scholarship student, and can’t help having her heart set on Harvard… even though she’s supposed to apply to Penn. And when early admission results get sent out, and not everyone gets in where they expected, things take a nasty turn. And suddenly Olivia has to figure out more than just which university she’ll be attending next year – but who would kill for the chance.

After closely following the American college bribery admissions scandal in the news the last couple years, I couldn’t help being intrigued by this novel’s premise! Being Canadian – where university is definitely not as competitive (or expensive!) as it is in the States – it’s hard not to be fascinated by how seriously people in America take admissions to Ivy League schools – and the lengths they’ll go to procure them.

Maybe it’s from being raised on the Pretty Little Liars series by Sara Shepard and the Private series by Kate Brian, but I’m a sucker for a good YA mystery/thriller. Set it at a boarding school and throw in some dark academia vibes? I am sold. So, you can bet how excited I was to dig into the story of The Ivies, and I’m so pleased to say that it did not disappoint!

Setting a thriller in the “cut-throat” world of Ivy League collegiate admissions (pun intended) was such a fantastic idea given the current climate, and Donne really excels here, likely due to her own personal experience working as a college admissions mentor. This book manages to both feel outrageously out there and totally believable all at the same time. I think many teen readers, whether they live in the States or not, will find this book surprisingly relatable, and given the way things are going nowadays, honestly not as far-fetched as we’d hope.

The Ivies is such an entertaining read, and a great discussion on how competitive and toxic the college admissions world has become. While I saw most of the plot twists coming, it was so well written that I couldn’t pull myself away even if I had an inclination of who did what, because it wasn’t even about WHAT happened more so as it was about HOW it all went down. And boy, did A WHOLE LOT go down.

One thing I really enjoyed about this book was that there were so many reveals – it always kept you guessing even if you'd thought you’d figured it all out! And everything got wrapped up with such a neat bow at the end, so you weren’t left with any unanswered questions, but nevertheless had a lot to think about. This is a book that will stick with you long after you turn the last page, and one you’ll want to re-read it almost immediately after you finish.

Thank you to Turn the Page Tours and the publisher, Crown Books for Young Readers, for providing me with an e-ARC of this book via NetGalley. All thoughts are my own.

The beginning of this book was amazing but the author loss me halfway through when the pacing slowed down. I really enjoyed the introduction of the characters and learning about the world of their elite prep school but when Olivia started her investigation the book's pacing slowed making the story feel slow. Plus, the final reveal of the murderer's motivation was too unbelievable for me. However, I enjoyed Donne's narrative voice and I plan to read more from her in the future.

I really enjoyed this book. The cover is so amazing. The mystery factor for this book was an A plus from this reader. Great read. Very well liked 4 stars