Rant Review: "The Ivies" by Alexa Donne

Quick Summary

Type: Novel

Genre: Thriller, suspense

Back Cover: "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."

Read Time: 4 days

Rating: 1.25 stars

Review

Let's start with a little background. I started reading this book prepared to be critical, for a couple of reasons. First, I had watched a YouTube review of this book by someone who really, really disliked it. Alexa Donne is an 'author-tuber', as in, she makes YouTube videos about writing, many of which are about the craft of writing. The YouTube video I watched was critical because the YouTuber thought the book was poorly written, and as a result Alexa Donne's writing advice should be taken with a grain of salt. I don't know about Donne's writing advice - I don't watch her videos - but I will say that this was neither the best nor worst written book I've ever read. I'd classify the writing as mediocre.

But the real reason I'm coming at this with a critical eye is because my current WIP, currently titled 'The Ghost of Forsyth Academy', is about a murder at a boarding school. As such, I'm trying to read other books about murders set at boarding schools, especially ones where the main character is a student investigating the murder. For one, I need comp titles if I ever query my novel. For two, I want to see what these books do right and what they do wrong.

So what does this book do right? Well, it's very quick and easy to read. That's something I can appreciate. Unfortunately, that's the best I can say about it.

Now onto my complaints.

Elite High Schools

First, if I thought I would gain some insight into boarding schools by reading this book, I was sorely mistaken. Not only does this author not seem to know how boarding schools work (seriously, I have my doubts about some of these things) but I don't think the author did any research into the culture of an 'elite' high school focused on academics and getting students into elite universities. This elite high school leans so far into stereotypes that it feels, at times, like a satire.

How do I know that Alexa Donne has never stepped foot in an 'elite' high school? I went to one. I attended Lowell High School in San Francisco, whose notable alumni include Larry Baer (President of the SF Giants), Steve Silver (creator of Beach Blanket Babylon), Eric Allin Cornell (2001 Nobel Prize winner in Physics), Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events), Carol Channing (actress), and Stephen Breyer (US Supreme Court Justice). When I attended, it was expected that everyone, especially those in the top 20% academically, would apply to and get accepted into at least one UC. I lost count of how many of my classmates were accepted into Stanford or UC Berkeley. But here's the difference between my high school and Alexa Donne's elite high school: everyone was encouraged to apply wherever they wanted. There were no quotas on who could apply where, nor were there quotas on how many students from our school were accepted into some of these universities. Granted, my school was an elite public school, and Donne's is an elite private school, but that doesn't change the fact that we could be cutthroat as hell, and we still didn't lean that far into stereotypes.

And now let's talk a little about academics. Lowell High School, being the massive, academics-focused high school it is, offered just about every AP under the sun. I don't believe they offered all of the languages (I know AP French was cut because no one wanted to suffer the awful French teacher for longer than they needed, and I don't remember German being an option), but otherwise? Yeah, Lowell had them all. Which is why I can say with almost absolute certainty that AP Brit Lit is not a class that existed. I checked the AP website, and 'AP Brit Lit' doesn't show up anywhere. The actual name of the AP English tests available (and thus the class names) are 'AP English Language and Composition' (junior year) and 'AP English Literature and Composition' (senior year), and the texts that are reviewed are a mix of texts written by both British and American authors. Because, you know, the AP program is an American invention so there's an obvious US-centric bent to the courses. And while we're on APs, AP Calculus is not actually a class. There's either AP Calculus A/B, or AP Calculus B/C.

Now, what I won't harp on is the number of AP classes these students are all taking. That actually tracks with my experience. In my time at Lowell, I think I took nine or more AP classes/tests, starting with my first AP test in freshman year. We were expected to take at least one AP per year starting sophomore year, and we were expected to take three or more during senior year. That's just how things were. So that part is actually fairly realistic.

Now that I've gotten that rant out of the way, let's start with the real review. As with other books I dislike and want to DNF, I've started this review while reading in order to hold myself accountable.

The Mirror Trick

My first non-elite-high-school-related complaint comes when the protagonist, Olivia, turns her phone camera on herself to check her appearance. She then proceeds to describe her appearance to readers as she sees it in her phone. The describe-the-protagonist-in-the-mirror trick is the first thing new writers are warned away from. In fact, if Alexa Donne is like most other author-tubers, she has probably told her viewers not to use the mirror trick to describe the appearance of their main character. It's tacky, and belongs exclusively in the cringy fanfiction of middle school writers just starting out on their writing journey. Even then, I feel like I'm not giving middle school fanfic writers enough credit - for their age and experience level, they write well, and pretty quickly figure out that they shouldn't use the mirror trick.

Olivia

Since we've started talking about Olivia, let's delve further into that topic. Olivia is a scholarship kid. Unlike her friends, she's poor, and she will not let us forget it. Not only that, but she's "not like the other Ivies". The Ivies are backstabbing, ruthless bitches who ruin other people's lives for their own gain. Olivia is also a backstabbing, ruthless bitch who ruins other people's lives for her own gain. But it's okay because her friends did even worse things (on her behalf) without telling her, so she's completely absolved of all guilt. Right? Well, that's what all the non-Ivy characters decide, and the reason we get quotes like "remind me again why you're an Ivy?". This is a prime example of Mary-Sue syndrome. The author can't bare to have her main character be seen as anything less than perfect, so makes the other characters forgive her for all the really terrible stuff she's done because she's so nice and not at all like her friends.

And now let's talk about something that drove me a little crazy. Every once in a while, Olivia will spout something off in French, either in her inner monologue or to the reader. Why? There's absolutely no reason given. Never at any point does Olivia say she is French, or she learned French, or anything. She just seems to know it. The kicker? Olivia is in AP German. That's right, she's not studying French at this school, she's taking German. So why is she speaking French? I have no clue. It makes no sense in the story or with the character.

Then near the end of the story, she gets into a fight with Canadian Ken. This is after he has learned that she and her friends did what they could to sabotage his high school career, and he's understandably mad. But we learn that Ethan also got into Harvard. And suddenly Olivia is saying that not telling her about Harvard is worse than her sabotaging his high school journalism career? Yeah, right.

Canadian Ken

Now let's move on to specific complaints about a particular character: Ethan, the love interest. Is it petty to have a whole list of complaints aimed at a single character? Maybe, but I'm annoyed at how this poor guy was written. He's described as being stereotypically Canadian nice at pretty much opportunity (so whenever he's mentioned). But I've been in Canada, lived there for four years, and let me tell you: some Canadians are absolute jackasses. Ethan is nice, but it has nothing to do with him being Canadian.

Did I mention that Ethan is nice? Yeah, that's pretty much his only character trait. He's nice (serving only to be nice to Olivia and make her feel crush-y things, even though that part feels forced) and he does journalism. Otherwise, he's not a character, much less a realistic one.

Which leads me into another complaint: at one point, for whatever insane reason, Olivia starts spouting off in French. Ethan is confused, and Olivia has to translate for him. But why? Does Alexa Donne know nothing about Canada? Canada is a two-language country. Because of Quebec, Canadian law dictates that every student across the country has to learn French in school. Ethan should know basic French.

Finally, my last complaint. Ethan's nickname by the Ivies is 'Canadian Ken'. I actually didn't have too much of a problem with this - it was maybe overused, but I could ignore it. That is, until I learned that Ethan's last name is Kendall. That's right, Kendall like 'Ken Doll'. Real original, Alexa.

The Red Herring

The main conflict in this story is, obviously, a murder. Olivia's friend Emma, who got into Harvard over Emma's childhood friend Avery, is found murdered the morning after Emma and Avery got into a fight about Emma's Harvard acceptance. In this fight, Avery was pissed.

Did Avery kill Emma? Well, the answer is pretty obviously not. Avery definitely did not kill Emma. How do I know, even though I haven't finished the book? Because the author is laying it on so thick that it's the most obvious red herring I've ever read. Avery is trying to use Emma's death as a way to get into Harvard anyway, she's not completely torn up about it, she and the Ivies are getting their stories straight, she's keeping secrets from Olivia, her hoodie is in the last place Emma was seen alive and she sneaks in to try to hide the evidence, and multiple times Olivia flat-out wonders 'did Avery kill Emma', going so far as to suggest her theory to the police. Yeah, Avery's innocent.

Then suddenly, Olivia is convinced that Ethan is the killer (by snooping on Tyler's computer). She's so convinced of it that it's obvious that Ethan is the new red herring.

Until we go back to the old red herring, and Avery is back to being the killer. Even after Tyler is confirmed as the actual killer, Avery seems like she'll go along with his insane plan, but it's so obvious that she'll end up being the good guy savior, even as she's pretending to go along with Tyler's plan. It was so obvious that I'm surprised that Olivia and Tyler were surprised that she was on the phone with the cops the whole time. That was the obvious move (so at least one character is acting realistically, I guess).

The Forced Social Issues

I'm going to start with the discussion about race and affirmative action, then quickly move on to the socio-economic issues. Why am I not spending a lot of time talking about issues as important as race and affirmative action? Because the author isn't spending a lot of time on it. Olivia has a brief conversation with Sierra, the black girl in STEM and rowing, in which Sierra gets annoyed at white people who accuse her of only getting into Yale because of affirmative action. This is an incredibly important discussion because oftentimes minorities, and especially women and POC (so doubly POC women) have their accomplishments minimized because of this type of thinking. So naturally, this incredibly important topic is given about five minutes worth of attention and then completely forgotten. It makes me think that the author included it not because it's an important topic, but because the author felt like she had to. The discussion feels forced.

Much more discussed are the socio-economic issues, the disparities between rich and poor. It's a recurring theme throughout the novel, although like the affirmative action discussion, it feels very shallow. Again, there are important issues to discuss relating to those disparities. For example, why does Olivia have to work for her scholarship? It feels exploitative. Or you could go further into the discussions of wardrobes, how Olivia feels out of place when her friends go shopping for luxury brands while Olivia is wearing stuff from Target? There are ways to point out this disparity. Instead, Olivia harps on about strange things. For example, she finds it suspicious that her friends - whose families have family-lawyer-money - refuse to let their children speak to the police without a lawyer. This is not suspicious, this is intelligent. Olivia should have elected to have the school lawyer accompany her in the police interviews because it's just common sense, and it's good that these families that have the money to do it are offering their kids that support. At one point, Olivia also treats one of her friends to Starbucks, then has the nerve to complain that her friend orders a $5 coffee (this book was published post-pandemic, $5 is basically a standard medium fancy coffee, not the most expensive drink possible as Olivia posits).

More annoyingly, this discussion of 'rich people bad, poor people like Olivia good' is used selectively. Yes, Olivia the poor is pretty much always established as the good guy, but Ethan - Mr. Richie Rich Canadian Ken - is also positioned as a good guy. But his wealth? Never brought up. His father is an ambassador and his mother an anchor at a national news station, so clearly he's from a wealthy family, but his wealth is never mentioned because, again, he's a good guy so by Alexa Donne rules he can't be seen as wealthy.

The only time where this issue is treated well is when exams are rescheduled, and Olivia feels bad because it means her non-refundable ticket back home is going to waste. Otherwise, this issue is treated in such a shallow manner it's almost unreadable.

And now, let's circle back to affirmative action. Because after being ignored for ninety percent of the novel, of course that's the villain's motive. Seriously. We find out that Tyler, Emma's boyfriend, is the killer. As he's holding Olivia at gunpoint, she asks him why he killed Emma, and he actually goes into a monologue about it. Apparently, it's so hard to be a white boy in college admissions, and everyone who got into the Ivies over him did so because of affirmative action. His speech hits every mediocre-white-boy stereotype so perfectly that rather than be a poignant discussion of white privilege, this is one of the funniest things I've read recently. Not great considering this is supposed to be a thriller, but it was hilarious.

But let's be real, Donne only threw that monologue in so she could get 'woke' points, because the real reason he killed Emma was so he could have a better essay for regular decision applications. So dumb.

The Prose

To be honest, the prose and the writing style were some of the easier things to stomach in this novel. It definitely wasn't the worst I've ever read (looking at you, Piper CJ). But it wasn't great, either.

Starting from the beginning, the pacing is a little odd. I wouldn't say it drags on as much as The Night and Its Moon or Babel, but it does drag on in places where it shouldn't. For example, the scene where people start receiving early decision or early action notifications? That dragged on way more than it should have. In the same vein, there were so many times where things were happening that seemed like they should be interesting, but were written so blandly, so passively that I just couldn't bring myself to care.

And while most of the time, the prose is normal, if not a little basic and bland, there are times where it's so strange it takes you out of the story as you try to figure out what the hell the author was thinking when she wrote it. For example: "Avery worries her lip." That is an actual sentence in the book, and it was so strange, so out of place that I had to stop and wonder why Alexa Donne thought this was a good sentence.

Finally, I have a bone to pick with the way the characters speak. Side characters in this book have no voice. Fine. I can live with that. A lot of the Ivies have the same voice. Fine. I can live with that too. What I have trouble with is when the author tries to make them sound like contemporary teenagers. That's when they start coming off as cringy. They'll go from talking in what the author thinks is a teenager's voice to saying things like "one's phone is sacred". All in all, it makes for teenage characters that don't sound real in the slightest. On top of that, the author's attempts at current teen lingo and pop culture references is going to date this book very quickly. Honestly, this was published in 2021 and it already feels a little dated. It's not as bad as The Winter Knight, but still.

Random Things That Really Annoyed Me

In chronological order:

After Olivia and Sierra discover Emma's body, Olivia is waiting downstairs for the police while Sierra is waiting upstairs. Why aren't they waiting together? If the police need to interview the people who found the body, shouldn't those people be waiting together? Even if Sierra is sobbing and curled into a ball, she can do that downstairs with Olivia. It makes no sense that they were separated.

Speaking of which, since this murder has happened at a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, shouldn't this be the sheriff department's jurisdiction, not the police? I don't know if it's been specified, but the use of 'Detective' implies police since sheriff departments generally use the term investigator and do not have 'detective' as a rank. A quick Google search was enough to confirm this fact, so I'm not sure why Donne couldn't do that.

Also, I have a bone to pick with Donne's way of naming characters. I've already talked about the Kendall/Ken Doll issue, but there's another (minor) character who suffers from the same thing. A character is accused of getting a mischievous glint in his eye like a trickster god. That character is named after the Egyptian trickster god (Set, aka Seth). It's not clever, Alexa, it's stupid.

Also, a character saying that reform school is the best thing that ever happened to them is not a good thing. It glosses over the fact that so many reform schools have been proven to be extremely harmful to kids, many are abusive environments, and overall they're not a good thing. And I don't think it's any different if you're rich - I know someone from a rich family that went to reform school for a year, exactly as described in this book, and he would definitely not say it's the best thing that ever happened to him.

The Ending

I already talked about the killer reveal and how dumb (and funny) it was, but everything that happens after was also very dumb. The school expels Olivia (but not the others) despite expelling Olivia being a very bad look for them. Olivia doesn't leak any of the story or her side to the press, which is an interesting strategy if she wants to get into any colleges despite her new reputation. The police have proven that she wasn't involved in the SAT scandal, but schools are still rejecting her, but Smith College - an excellent school - is going to give her a full ride anyway? And the others who actually were involved, whose names would be in the record as being involved (e.g. Margot, Ethan, etc.) are still able to go to top colleges (it's confirmed that Ethan, co-conspirator in the SAT scam, is attending Harvard and facing no consequences). It's all so stupid.

Jesus Lord, this was a bad book.