The Ivy Chronicles by Karen Quinn
Ivy Ames couldn’t have had a better life. She lives on the Upper
East Side, drives a nice car, has a well-paying corporate job, lives in a
beautiful apartment on the Upper East Side of New York and has a wonderful marriage.
No quicker than about two chapters into this book does Ivy loose it all.
After being laid off from her corporate job at Myoki, Ivy walks in on her husband with another woman in the middle of the day. No sooner do these events occur does Ivy begin to realize that her old life isn’t going to be
possible. No more spending $50,000 on getting her hair cut and colored. Her
kids are no longer going to be able to go to an elite private school that costs
$25,000 per year for each girl. No more nice car, nice house, dog training, and
full time nannies. And that is only half of it.
After coming to terms that her life is falling
apart and there isn't much she can do to stop it, Ivy moves to a much less elite neighborhood in New York. Kate and Skyler also have to begin attending public school, which causes many problems for both the girls and Ivy with their old "friends" on the Upper East Side. Tragic.
When Ivy's friend Faith seeks Ivy's advice for getting her own daughter into private school, and is successful, a bright idea occurs to Faith about Ivy's future. After some hesitation Ivy
begins a private school admissions counseling service. Her clients are willing to pay $10,000-$20,000 to get Ivy's advice on
how to get their precious tots into the most elite and expensive private
kindergarten programs in New York aka the Baby Ivy’s.
Having enjoyed Schooled
by Anisha Lakhani I thought for sure I would love The Ivy Chronicles. While being a page turner just because of the
sole fact I wanted to know where these little brats got into school, there were
several times I could have put the book down and walked away. If I could have,
I would have slapped Ivy Ames in the face.
Her no good, rich attitude
is the absolute worst. She doesn’t cope well with having to do without the things
that she feels she deserves in life. Her ridiculous romances and immature
behavior really got the best of me and made her one of the most miserable
characters I’ve ever met. She is incredibly shallow, openly admits she’d never
marry for love again, only money. She compromises her own values to get ahead
in the word, money wise.
The book was well edited and the writing wasn’t horrible. I
did feel though that several parts of the book were “thrown in” just to keep
the story moving (ie: alligator attack). Aside from these random plot lines,
some of the characters were enjoyable and you really do end up hoping for the best
for them. I read this book in about three days, and couldn’t be happier to have
seen the last page.
Rating: ★★
