#alexa donne

[vavandeveresfan]

Great writing advice videos.

Alexa Donne is a professional, traditionally published author. She has tons of wonderful videos about writing.

Go to her YouTube channel for more.

#writblr #writers on tumblr #writing community #writers of tumblr #writing advice #writing tips #Alexa Donne #writers on writing #on writing #writing videos #writer #writers

[rightwriter]

Alexa Donne talks about how to create interesting "pinch points" in your writing!

#rightwriter #youtube #writing tips #writing #writing advice #writing tools #on writing #writerslife #writer #writerscommunity #writers on tumblr #editor advice #writing is hard #Youtube #alexa donne #preptober #nanowrimo 2023 #nanowrimo

[blueberryshelves]

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Book Review

Title: The Ivies Author: Alexa Donne

Series: stand-alone

No. of Pages: 336

ISBN:  9780593303733 (paperback) 9780593303702 (hardcover) 9780593303726 (ebook)

Synopsis:

Enroll in this boarding school thriller about a group of prep school elites who would kill to get into the college of their dreams...literally."

The Plastics meet the Heathers in this murder mystery about ruthless Ivy League ambition." -Kirkus Reviews 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.

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What did I think of the book?

The Ivies by Alexa Donne My rating: ⭐ 1 of 5 stars (1.5 really) *Disclaimer: Spoilers.* So far, my experience with author youtubers who give advice on writing hasn't been great. The advice is usually solid, and in Alexa Donne's case, I found many of her videos really helpful for figuring out what was wrong with my own writing practices. However, I'm starting to realize why best selling authors with strong prose, plot, and characters, tend to NOT be youtubers. Author youtubers seem to excel at teaching, and giving information, but their actual writing doesn't tend to reflect their apparent knowledge (speaking from my own experiences). So, here lands The Ivies. This is the first of Alex Donne's work that I've read, and I'm totally confused. Despite the fact that the book had me finishing it in two days, rapidly going through page after page on the edge of my seat with it's insane rabbit hole; it left me feeling that the story just wasn't finished. I don't mean "finished" as in, there needs to be a second book; I mean, in the end, no one really solved anything, and there was no closure on the murder. No one changed or grew or improved, if anything, the characters just became even more unhinged as the book went on until it lead to a deflating reveal of the actual killer with a horrifically ridiculous motive. The story was drowned in red herrings and misleads to the point of suffocating the fun out of the book. They were so frequent, and so many that it became downright frustrating and exhausting to read. There were more loose ends that were never tied up than a torn knitted jumper. The "false" reveal was a lot more tense and interesting to read, and the book honestly could have cut out the entirety of act 3 for me, and skipped to the end. The pacing was good in the first half of the book, but suffered in the second half, and dragged on. By the end, I began to suspect Olivia, the MC. Maybe this wasn't the intention, but her choices at the end of the book made me seriously consider if I just got mind-fucked by what she was narrating to herself for the entire story, and she really was the killer all along. Might explain why she never got anywhere in her "investigation" or withholding information from authority for her so-called friends, and we're just being lied to as the readers (she did, after all, have access to everything apparently). While the writing style was easy to get into, it had one issue: Too. Much. Telling. (and swearing…). At the end of almost every chapter, whatever big revelation occurred in the chapter is just told to you in black and white, rather than letting you ride the wave of the realization in your own head. Much of the natural tension of having the realizations on my own as the reader were completely lost, and ruined every tension bubble attempted to be created. It worked great for the end of the first chapter, but it just didn't for the rest. The same can be said for all the schemes the Ivies apparently did. We're just told they happened, but we never get to see these girls actually in action from their PoV. Favorite character/s: Well, not many of the characters are "likeable". It's almost laughable how unlikeable the characters are to the point of 'okay, I kind of hate you all, but I want to know how far the rabbit hole goes, so…'. What drew me to the book? I wanted a thriller to study that wouldn't give me nightmares, and finally check out Alexa Donne's work. Stars: 1.5/5, pretty interesting concept, but too many problems with the execution of it. View all my reviews

#book review #the ivies #alexa donne #murder mystery #college admissions #lies and backstabbing #thriller #fiction #booklr #bookblr #book blog #books #bookish #bookworm #books and reading #book photography

[brightbeautifulthings]

Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne

"A chill runs through me. My grandmother's legacy. This town's lifeblood. Dead things. Welcome home, I guess."

Year Read: 2022

Rating: 4/5

About: After her mother's death, Cecelia moves in with her grandmother, a famous mystery author who lives in an old Victorian house in the small, coastal town of Seaview. Cecelia is just in time for the annual book convention celebrating her grandmother's work, and she decides to reacquaint herself with her first novel, a book about the death of the town's homecoming queen that was inspired by real events. When another homecoming court hopeful turns up dead in a similar way, she's determined to find what looks more and more like a copycat killer. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Random House. Trigger warnings: character death, drowning, car accidents, drug/alcohol use, injury, needles.

Thoughts: This is easily one of my favorite YA thrillers in recent memory. It's an excellent blend of contemporary characters and settings with vintage murder mystery vibes, and the combination manages to feel both fresh and classic at once. There's so much atmosphere in Cecelia's grandmother's big old house and her notoriety as a mystery writer, alongside the more modern high school, social media, and book convention aspects, and the homecoming queen murders feel nicely nostalgic (as well as gruesome, of course).

Like most YA thrillers, we have to suspend disbelief a little that Cecelia is able to investigate murders past and present better than the local police, but it's enjoyable watching her uncover pieces of both mysteries. It's nicely paced between that and the more realistic problems of fitting in to her new high school in a town where everyone has known each other forever, as well as her grief over her mother's recent passing.

The romance is a little quick, the love interest a little overbearing and with a hint of a love triangle, but it's nothing that put me off as I was reading. Overall, the characters are enjoyable and feel realistically like teenagers. The ending is tense, the murder reveal satisfying and plausible, and I'd gladly read more of Donne's thrillers. I'll probably go ahead and add The Ivies to my list, since it's giving off heavy dark academia vibes.

#book review #pretty dead queens #alexa donne #ya thriller #ya mystery #random house #netgalley #4/5 #rating: 4/5 #2022

[the-final-sentence]

Time for me to do the chasing.

Alexa Donne, from Pretty Dead Queens

#Pretty Dead Queens #Alexa Donne

[wedontburnbookshere]

[Image id in alt]

☆☆☆

(Spoilers in last two paragraphs)

Like most YA thrillers I read, this is on the more campy side, so if you're looking for something like Sadie by Courtney Summers, this isn't for you. I really like YA thrillers for that campiness, similar to why I love reading cozy mysteries. This one delivered that well, though the "woke" dialogue that popped up now and again took me out at times, though at least some of it is believable.

The narrator, Olivia, is a white, (presumably) straight scholarship student from Maryland attending a school full of the 1%. She's 18, so she's learning about social justice and believes she knows more than many of her classmates, having more real world experience than many of them will face, and she grasps this to give her a feeling of superiority. She needs to be a good person, especially when she helps her friends, The Ivies, sabotage their classmates to get a leg up in the competition to their first choice schools.

It could make Olivia grating to read at times, but for the most part, she was an easy protagonist to sympathize with. She'll need to learn not to babble and keep on a good poker face, though, if she wants to go into investigative journalism (granted, I'm not sure if it was specified what in journalism Olivia wants to focus on).

It was pretty easy to whittle down who the killer was. It wasn't Sierra or Margot, because I was very sure Donne wouldn't make a WOC kill the white girl. If Avery's sexuality had been revealed earlier, she would have been knocked out of the suspect pool also. I wanted it to be Ethan. It would have been more interesting if it had been Ethan, even if I usually hate the "one of the investigators was the killer all along" trope. It would make sense given his backstory, and it could have been an accident he made worse by trying to hide evidence, accidentally incriminating Olivia and helping her to both keep her from suspecting him but also having this internal war for possibly pushing her under a bus meant for him.

After its revealed Tyler did it, I just shrugged, and his speech made me laugh. Like I said, I enjoy YA thrillers for the campiness, but this seemed much. It would have helped if there'd been more hints of his utter disregard for human life. The closest I remember seeing of that was close to the end, where Olivia learns he'd written his college essay about how quarantine had given him time to learn more about himself, help delivery drivers by tipping them, and gain TikTok followers, and that's pretty generic "blinded by his own privilege" stuff. I did like how smug he is through the trials, safe in the knowledge people with his kind of money can easily get away with murder with little more than a slap on the wrist (though it's a bit different in this case, since while not as rich as the Monteforts and St. Clairs, Emma's family is rich, too, so they can play the game of media too, if they'd wanted, but it sounds like they'd pretty much disappeared after cleaning out Emma's dorm room).

Overall it was a fun read, and I added Donne's other YA thriller book to my TBR to see how she'd grown as a writer, since the skill is there.

#book review tag #the ivies #alexa donne #ya thriller

[oracleofmadness]

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this Arc!!

This was a really fun ya murder mystery that is perfect for some Fall reading.

Cecelia has to move in with her grandmother in a small seaside town after her mother dies. She barely starts school before it's homecoming and finds one of the girls running for homecoming queen dead in the school pool. This rockets Cecelia forward into an obsession with finding the murderer. Among lots of twists and turns and a little romance, this story pulled me along quickly and kept me entertained.

Definitely recommend to fans of ya murder mystery looking for a fun read!

Out October 4, 2022!

Content warning for murder, grief, violence.

#book #bookish #books #bookworm #book review #currently reading #read #bookblogger #reading #murdermysteries #murder mystery book #ya thriller #ya fiction #ya books #netgalley review #netgalley #alexa donne #Pretty Dead Queens

[layo2-0]

The Ivies by Alexa Donne (7/26-7/28)

5/5 stars

Genres: Contemporary, Mystery, Crime

Tags: Main Character Death, Murder, Statutory Rape, Assault, Student/Teacher Relationship, Classism, Racism, Homophobia, Lots of Lying, Underage Drinking

#book #books #book review #the ivies #alexa donne

[hazellevessque]

I just finished the Ivies by Alexa Donne and there is not ONE post on this website about it. If you read it please talk to me. I am unwell.

#the ivies #olivia winters #alexa donne

[brittanybwrites]

Thought I would enjoy Elminster Must Die, but I didn’t, so I gave it my first one star. So now I’m reading Pretty Dead Queens, and it’s really good so far.

#booklr #pretty dead queens #Alexa Donne #ya thriller #currently reading #on my kindle #litblr

[lilibetbombshell]

#arc review #arc reader #arc reviewer #book review #book reviewer #boom blog #book blogger #netgalley #random house childrens #crown books for young readers #alexa donne #pretty dead queens #new release #new release book #new book #new book alert #new book release #amateur sleuth #ya mystery #ya suspense #ya thriller

[bookstagramofmine]

Book Review: Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne

Book Review: Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne #BookReview #NetGalley @NetGalley@TBRBeyondTours @alexadonne #BookTwt #Bookish

Pretty Dead Queens by Alexa Donne I think I’m a little obsessed with all these YA thrillers! They seem to have really made a resurgence this year. Or maybe I’m wrong and an idiot who hadn’t noticed all of these before the good girls guide to murder series. This category is turning into my comfort category of books that I read in one sitting and can really do no wrong. Pretty Dead Queens is no…

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#Alexa Donne #book review #book tour #pretty dead queens #TBR and Beyond Tours #ya fiction #YA thriller

[rightwriter]

A nice motivating video by these two authors, Katytastic and Alexa Donne to get you in the writing headspace :)

#katytastic #alexa donne #podcast #interview #youtube #writing chat #plotting #pantsing #plotter vs pantser #writing advice #writing is hard #on writing #writing #writer #writerslife #Youtube

[readingwithwrin]

The Ivies by Alexa Donne | Book Review

The Ivies by Alexa Donne | Book Review

Title: The Ivies Author: Alexa Donne Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers Published Date: May 25th, 2021 Genre: mystery, thriller, realistic, YA, boarding school Source: Library/Netgalley/Publisher Rating: ★ ★ ★ .5 Goodreads Summary: 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.…

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#3.5 stars #alexa donne #boarding school #book review #getting my netgalley under control #mystery mondays #realistic fiction #the ivies #thriller #YA

[travelingtostories]

F I N I S H E D : Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne.

Wow! This story gave me so many feelings. I really felt I was in this world with all the amazing characters. The plot is perfectly written and it will always have a special place in my heart.

#book #finished #brightly burning #alexa donne #reading #books

[spettriedemoni]

Confusione

Apro il Mac e decidi di usare la funzione vocale.

«Alexa, trovami il file X»

«Forse ti sei confuso…»

Rifletto un attimo poi dico: «SIRI»

Purtroppo non mi ha parlato per mezz’ora.

#cazzeggio #libero cazzeggio #storie brevi #bisogna stare attenti con le donne #è stato un po’ surreale #Siri #Alexa