Karen Quinn's The Ivy Chronicles is the amusing story of what happens when a New Yorker loses her job, her husband, and her ritzy Park Avenue pad and is forced to carve out a new niche for herself and her two private school-educated daughters. After transferring the girls to public school and renting a shabby-chic (at best) flat upstairs from a knicherie, Ivy Ames takes her billionaire friend Faith's advice and starts a consulting business to help privileged pre-schoolers get into the city's premier kindergartens. Light on substance yet heavy on laughs, Quinn does a reasonably successful job of following in the well-heeled footsteps of earlier gossip lit standouts such as The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada.

While Ivy's moral quandaries (is it really wrong to accept an alligator-skin Prada in exchange for securing a child's placement at a top "Baby Ivy") and often raunchy romances form the basis for this exposé, it is the toddlers' family stories that get the most laughs along the way. From Maria Kutcher, whose mob boss father is often referred to as "Kutcher the Butcher" to Winnie Weiner, a "nice Jewish girl from the Upper West Side" who becomes the African-American WaShaunte Washington in order to snag a "diversity" spot at the top schools, Quinn spares no one when it comes to exposing the habits of the rich and almost-famous. Yet even as Ivy begins to see the error of her snobbish ways, Quinn never quite lets her off the hook completely ("...it was such a relief to have a powerful man to lean on. Why couldn't I have one of my very own? Why?"). Still, for those of us who are in need of a quick laugh and have a few hours to spare, The Ivy Chronicles promises to entertain and amuse. --Gisele Toueg

From Publishers Weekly
When 39-year-old Ivy Ames loses her corporate job, her big-shot husband, Cadman, cheats on her and she's too poor for her pampered Upper East Side lifestyle, she finds herself creating a new life for herself and her two young daughters on New York's exponentially less tony Lower East Side. Ivy hammers out a living helping the city's elite nab spots in the most exclusive private kindergartens in town, but first-time author Quinn's book isn't a feel-good tale about realizing money isn't everything. Even as Ivy comes to understand that her former life among the ultra-rich was absurd and shallow at best, she continues to hope that she'll snag a new husband so rich that she'll never have to work again. Quinn's characters are unapologetically shallow, two-dimensional cartoons designed to affably lampoon the silliness of New York's elite, giving readers ample opportunity to snicker at people like a newspaper mogul willing to pay off the FDA to get her demon child into a "baby Ivy" league kindergarten and other wealthy, overly successful parents who use their kids to channel ambition and perpetuate elitism. It's good fun in small doses, but lengthy exposure to the cotton candy plot and caricaturish characters may leave readers with the zombie-like feeling produced by watching too many reality TV makeovers. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
This superficial first novel is full of two-dimensional characters and exaggerated plot devices trimmed liberally with humor. It's difficult to sympathize with turbocharged Park Avenue-mom Ivy Ames after she loses her high-powered executive position to a backstabbing coworker, and her husband to the coworker's trophy wife. Ivy turns her life around by moving her two spoiled daughters into an apartment above a kosher deli on the Lower East Side and opening a business that helps wealthy social-climbing parents get their resume-toting tots into the "Baby Ivies." The breezy plot is full of camera-ready scenes and characters: the lovable mobster with an aggressive daughter, the odious yuppie--father of an awkward child, the industrious yet destitute maid with a brilliant son, and the requisite love triangle made up of Ivy, the cute-and-comfy deli owner, and the adorably aimless novelist. There's plenty of screwball scenes involving children, dogs, and lovably gruff New Yorkers. By turns heartwarming and schmaltzy, this novel begs to be filmed instead of printed. A guilty pleasure worth indulging. Kaite Mediatore
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The London Times, 12/12/04
The secrets of professional fixers who help wealthy parents get children into America's top kindergartens are about to be revealed.

Jill Kargman, coauthor of The Right Address
The brilliant, witty, and ultimately soulful heroine is a perfect tour guide who will leave you laughing up your latte.

Katharine Weber, author of The Little Women
Wicked and delightful...Comparisons to The Nanny Diaries are inevitable, but The Ivy Chronicles is much funnier and darker.

Janice Kaplan, coauthor of The Botox Diaries
An entertaining peek into private schools from one who’s been there. Fun to read!

Amanda Filipacci, author of Vapor and Love Creeps
A delicious glimpse into the sinister world of kindergarten admissions. Prepare yourself for a shocking, funny, and outrageous read.

Leslie Schnur, author of The Dog Walker
Hilarious, spirited, and wise. Karen Quinn brilliantly skewers the insanely competitive world of wealth we love to hate.

Bonnie Marston, author of Sleeping with Schubert
I'm still laughing... This exotic journey into private-school mania is fascinating, surprising, a little scary and... very funny.

The New York Post, January 23, 2005
This entertaining novel, written by a former kindergarten admissions advisor, picks up where 'The Nanny Diaries' left off.

Child Magazine, December/January 2005
A hilarious look at how an enterprising mom starts a business helping New Yorkers get their children into private school.

NY Newsday, January 16, 2005
A cross between gossip lit and mommy lit, it's a breezy read...I'd give her a solid B+.

Book Description
When turbocharged Park Avenue mom Ivy Ames finds she’s been downsized from her high-powered corporate job and her marriage, she swiftly realizes that she’s going to need a whole new way to support herself and her two private-school daughters. At first she does the obvious thing: she panics. Then she decides to put her years of marketing savvy to work and dreams up a brilliant new business - helping upscale New Yorkers get their little darlings into the most exclusive kindergartens in the city. Ivy enters a parent-eat-parent world where the egos are directly proportional to their owners’ enormous incomes, peopled by her only-in-Manhattan clients, including: - Lilith Radmore-Stein, a newspaper mogul who is willing risk her entire empire in a demented effort to get her son admitted to Harvard Day - Omar Kutcher ("Kutcher the Butcher"), a cold-blooded mob boss who seeks Ivy’s counsel on whether to bump off or pay off the powers-that-be to get his "little pistol" into the city’s best all-girls Catholic school - Stu Needleman, Ivy’s most obnoxious client, who threatens to ruin her if she won’t help his four-year-old unibrowed daughter cheat on her kindergarten entrance exam - Willow Bliss and Tiny Herrera, the biracial lesbian parents of an adopted wheelchair-bound black child who is the "triple crown of diversity" that every school will covet From the backstabbers of corporate America to the leading toddlers of Fifth Avenue, The Ivy Chronicles is more than an insider’s look at this elite and utterly preposterous universe. It is also a tale of midlife reinvention and unexpected romance - for anyone who has ever lost what she holds dear and had to start over again.

About the Author
Author Karen Quinn knows whereof she speaks. After losing her own high- powered corporate job, she, like Ivy, started a business advising well-heeled Manhattanites on private-school admissions. Her hilarious take on this terminally privileged, over-the-top world where even tots carry résumés will have readers snorting with laughter through every delicious page.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

When turbocharged Park Avenue mom Ivy Ames finds she's been downsized from herhigh-powered corporate job and her marriage, she swiftly realizes that she's going to need a whole new way to support herself and her two private-school daughters. At first she does the obvious thing: she panics. Then she decides to put her years of marketing savvy to work and dreams up a brilliant new business - helping upscale New Yorkers get their little darlings into the most exclusive kindergartens in the city.

Ivy enters a parent-eat-parent world where the egos are directly proportional to their owners' enormous incomes, peopled by her only-in-Manhattan clients, including: - Lilith Radmore-Stein, a newspaper mogul who is willing risk her entire empire in a demented effort to get her son admitted to Harvard Day - Omar Kutcher (￯﾿ﾽKutcher the Butcher￯﾿ﾽ), a cold-blooded mob boss who seeks Ivy's counsel on whether to bump off or pay off the powers-that-be to get his ￯﾿ﾽlittle pistol￯﾿ﾽ into the city's best all-girls Catholic school - Stu Needleman, Ivy's most obnoxious client, who threatens to ruin her if she won't help his four-year-old unibrowed daughter cheat on her kindergarten entrance exam - Willow Bliss and Tiny Herrera, the biracial lesbian parents of an adopted wheelchair-bound black child who is the ￯﾿ﾽtriple crown of diversity￯﾿ﾽ that every school will covet From the backstabbers of corporate America to the leading toddlers of Fifth Avenue, The Ivy Chronicles is more than an insider's look at this elite and utterly preposterous universe. It is also a tale of midlife reinvention and unexpected romance - for anyone who has ever lost what she holds dear and had to start over again.

Author Biography: Author Karen Quinn knows whereof she speaks. After losing her own high- powered corporate job, she, like Ivy, started a business advising well-heeled Manhattanites on private-school admissions. Her hilarious take on this terminally privileged, over-the-top world where even tots carry résumés will have readers snorting with laughter through every delicious page.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

Fresh from a divorce and a nasty firing, Ivy Ames has launched a new business: helping Manhattan parents get their kids into the right kindergartens. Quinn herself founded a similar company, so she'll get the details right. With a five-city author tour. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

After losing job and husband, a high-powered businesswoman (unfortunately) finds herself: the latest in the Nanny Diaries cycle of employment novels. Ivy Ames, in marketing for an investment house, is one of those frantically busy Wall Street women (mainlining coffee, handling the kids, hating her sexist boss) we've seen before. And, like most of them, she gets fired right off the bat and goes home to find hubby in flagrante with a family friend. Now unemployed, with a couple of rug-rats to feed and educate, Ivy has to figure out how to keep herself in private-school tuition and in bedding from ABC Home and Carpet. Having recently been of the ruling class, she figures out a service that parents of that class will need: consulting on how to get their children into private school. Never mind that nowhere does Quinn provide a good reason why the advice Ivy imparts to her clients couldn't have been picked up at an Upper West Side soiree. All the reader can do is sit back and watch Ivy's fabulous life come together in a ready-for-TV, label- and status-obsessed, technicolor fantasy. The first weakness is Ivy, barely qualifying as two-dimensional, so depressingly shallow that you might find yourself hoping for a Bonfire of the Vanities-style comeuppance at the end; she's like a stranger wandering through her own story. And then there are the secondary characters, a clutch of stereotypes whose portrayals flirt with classism and racism at the best of times. And there's Quinn's writing, which provides Ivy with lines like, "To my surprise and joy, caring for the children was a joy," in its attempt to humanize her (as a bonus, there's a love scene that actually uses the words "loins" and "softwomanly flesh"). Dull, obvious, offensive, Botox- and yoga-stuffed first novel. Agent: Robin Straus/Robin Straus Agency

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