disclaimer if you’ve read other reviews by me and are noticing a pattern: You’re correct that I don’t really give starred reviews, I feel like a peasant and don’t like leaving them and most often, I will only leave them if I vehemently despised a book. I enjoy most books for what they are, & I extract lessons from them all. Everyone’s reading experiences are subjective, so I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not, regardless if I add stars or not. Find me on Instagram: @bookish.millennial or tiktok: @bookishmillennial

Look, this is a compelling read but holyyyyyyyyy shit, are these humans insufferable!!!! The text examines topics of family, optics, wealth, classism, racism, being othered, and doing whatever you can to get what you want.

This made me think of how I felt when I was watching the first few episodes of Succession and I didn't realize it was a dramedy(drama/comedy). I was literally sitting there thinking, 'Why are all of these people SO horrible to each other?!' That's how I felt about the characters in White Ivy, but it never got better and it never made me laugh like Succession did. 

I don't love the homophobic undertones of your sexuality being compared to an ACTUAL crime .... Other than this, the book did reel me in from start to finish and I finished in one sitting because I was curious how this mess would play out. 

This book had several twists that I didn’t see coming, all the while being slightly mysterious - creating a combination that made it hard for me to put down. 

Ivy Lin is an unreliable main character, and this whole story is warped by her perspective. A lot of the characters seem like bad people, but I found myself constantly questioning how bad of people they really were, because I was viewing all of them through Ivy’s eyes. 

The theme of ownership comes up several times in this book. Ivy struggles to change her destiny, take ownership over her own life, but always ends up under the thumb of somebody else.

She's just not for me.

White Ivy is an INCREDIBLE read. Susie Yang has officially become an automatic buy for me. 

YOOOOO THIS WAS ACTUALLY SO GOOD?

i thought white ivy was such a captivating read. ivy is a very vain girl who grew up fairly poor, wanting to fit in with the rich kids of the white suburb a block over. she has a crush on this golden white boy, gideon, and tries to get his attention. however, her mom catches wind of her liking boys (interfering with her studies), thus sending her to china to spend time with her aunts. this essentially cuts off her chance with gideon and her friendship with roux, a romanian boy who she strikes a sort of friendship with consisting of stealing and lying.

fast forward and a decade goes by before they re-enter her life but in very different circumstances and their storylines get intertwined.

this. book. is. so. addicting. the writing itself is so beautiful and articulate. it raises questions about the characters that made me think as i hadn't noticed the details, and then sort of discussed possibilities and what not after, which i appreciated.

one thing going into this: ivy is not a likable character and i don't believe she is meant to be. but i loved how her and her family portrayed a familiar asian american family but with much more realistic complexities—not just being a fob or a rich transplant like the typical tropes. ivy's personality isn't based solely on her ethnicity, and while she isn't a very good person, you can't (at least I couldn't) stop reading about her, almost like observing a creature in a glass case.

i also loved that the love triangle plays upon typical tropes but also makes each guy's personalities complex as well so it's not obvious who you're supposed to root for. some people like me may enter this saying, 'ugh not another asian girl liking a white guy,' but i think this story couldn't have been done any other way otherwise, as it is a commentary on race and class and is very specific to THAT sort of white generational wealth vs. new money.

I ENJOYED THIS SO MUCH i couldn't put it down once i picked it up. each character made me skeptical (because of the questions susie throws in) of their intentions and what was bubbling underneath. i figured out the *major thing* right before it happened and gasped when it actually happened. i also was completely blindsided by the *plot twist* but i loved how it made me sit and have to reevaluate everything i just read. i think some people may not vibe with the ending, but i enjoyed it! it was a sort of sweet release—not necessarily good for you, but you couldn't give lesser of a fuck because yup! life sort of sucks ass and at the end of the day, we're all humans and you're not any better than me! i'm the only one who can look out for myself!

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

White Ivy is a sharp, almost dark, and surprising book about a woman who will go to any lengths to get what she wants. Dramatic yet honest, it also has an ending that will drop your jaw.

For you if: You like contemporary novels that bring the drama and aren’t afraid to point out uncomfortable truths.

FULL REVIEW:

Big thanks to Simon & Schuster for sending me an advanced review copy!

White Ivy is an impressive debut, and I enjoyed it even though it isn’t the type of book I typically read. I don’t tend to gravitate toward dramatic contemporary novels featuring unlikeable characters who make terrible choices lol. But here, Susie Yang takes that kind of story and stares at you from the pages while she’s telling it, never looking away even when you break eye contact. She finds the squirmiest moments of social norms and expectations and says them bluntly, which is somehow both refreshing and even more squirmy. It was fascinating.

The story is about a girl named Ivy, the daughter of Chinese immigrants who just desperately wants to break away from them. After a somewhat rebellious childhood, she’s reconnected with her rich grade-school crush years later, and they start dating. It’s everything she’s ever wanted. Or is it? Can she have life both ways? Ivy will do, say, and become whatever it takes to get what she wants, even if she doesn’t always know what that is. The book is about class and desire and family and social norms, and the simultaneous adherence to and rebellion against all those things.

I won’t say that I didn’t waver a few times in the middle, wondering if this book was for me, given how sort of terrible Ivy and some of the secondary characters are. But I’m really glad I pushed through to the end, because THAT ENDING. There was one part I definitely couldn’t have seen coming that dropped my jaw, swiftly followed by something that I can’t BELIEVE I didn’t see coming.

If you read for enjoyment/plot alone and don’t like to read about unlikeable characters, then I’m not sure this one is for you. But if you seek out books that do really interesting things from a character and storytelling perspective, and you’re willing to hang in there to experience it and see it pay off, then I recommend it.



TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Sexual harassment; Depression; Suicidal thoughts (brief); Fat phobia