The Ivies

The Ivies is a mystery thriller centered around elite college admissions. It features “The Ivies”—a group of girls at Claflin Academy who are willing to do anything to get into the ivy league of their choice…possibly even murder.

TW: drugging of other people without their knowledge

The Ivies is so incredibly engaging. There’s so many mystery threads for you to follow. All the hints were there and I loved following them.

That said, I did struggle in the beginning. Here's a snippet from the first paragraph of page one:

The only reason it's called the Ivy League is because, eighty years ago, some journalist coined the phrase to refer to an athletic conference. That's it. All of this because of football.

For some reason, my brain had a really hard time getting used to the writing. Eventually I got into the story and it was easier, but for whatever reason I couldn't find the beat of the sentences and get the flow.

The main mystery—the murder—was probably the least interesting out of all of them, but I still liked how it was set up and how it ended. I know it won’t appeal to anyone.

Olivia was fine. I didn’t love her, but I have no reason to complain. She doesn’t grow, necessarily, but she’s a good vessel for a mystery novel—unobtrusive, but interesting enough. She makes decisions that make sense and there’s also room in the text to explore the rest of the cast.

I think the setting was a big reason I liked it. I tend not to like teens written by grown adults, but the fact that it’s in a rich, private boarding school makes it seem like a whole other world. A whole other infuriating world. 

The ending is infuriating, but not in a bad way. The whole book is about rich white kids—it’s hard to be in that world and not get angry at how rules are just suggestions to them. But it’s not unrealistic and because of that I don’t count my annoyance as a negative.