1.
After losing her husband and finding herself with
no financial safety net, Ivy Ames decides that
if she marries again, it will be to someone rich,
or at least with good earning potential. What
does this say to you about Ivy’s character?
Is she a single mother who is just being practical,
a shallow gold-digger, or something in between?
2.
In the first two chapters, Ivy comes to blows
with a chauvinistic, narcissistic boss and a power-grabbing
co-worker. Are these people caricatures or do
they exist in businesses today? What experiences
have you had with people like Konrad Kavaler or
Drayton Bird either in or out of the workplace?
3.
In The Ivy Chronicles, Ivy is constantly
faced with ethical dilemmas from impersonating
an expert in school admissions to a reporter (lying)
to teaching a child the answers to a kindergarten
admissions test (cheating) to ruining a client’s
chances for admission to a Jewish school (betrayal).
How does Ivy rationalize this behavior in her
mind? Do personal circumstances ever justify violating
ethical standards? When all the other parents
and schools were pushing the ethical envelope,
was it fair for Ivy and her clients to do the
same?
4.
The Ivy Chronicles is about a world of
people where racism, classism, anti-Semitism,
anti-anyone other than me-ism is part of the social
landscape. Do you believe people of economic privilege
are more likely to exhibit prejudice than their
middle or lower class counterparts? Could there
be any excuse for high school students chanting
anti-Semitic slurs at a basketball game? What
if those chanting were Jewish themselves and this
was typical of joshing ethnic banter at the school?
Would it surprise you to know that this story
is based on a real incident?
5.
Ivy is a woman who is so obsessed with the superficial
trappings of wealth—designer clothes, physical
beauty, expensive homes, cars—that she even
carries around an empty Barney’s bag so
people will believe she can still afford to shop
there. Why does she continue to worship at the
altar of Prada when she can barely put food on
the table? Is she right to believe that her new
clients won’t take her seriously if they
know she is not living the life of privilege that
they are? What do you think about our culture’s
fixation on symbols of affluence?
6. What do you think of Ivy as a person? Why is
she likeable? What are her flaws? How did her
experiences change her character? Would you want
to be her friend?
7.
In The Ivy Chronicles illustrates a world
where children’s activities are dictated
by their resume value, where four-year-olds are
pressured to perform in school interviews and
on kindergarten admissions tests, where little
ones are raised by nannies and delivered to their
parents after they have been fed, bathed and dressed
for bed. How does this compare to the way your
children are raised? What are these “privileged”
children missing? What are their parents missing?
What advantages do these children have compared
to yours? Is it worth the price they pay?
8.
The Ivy Chronicles is a story about a
woman who reinvents herself after losing everything
she values. Have you ever experienced a significant
loss and had to start over? What happened? Do
you feel you ended up better or worse when all
was said and done?
9.
After Ivy loses her job and stays home for a while,
she realizes just how much she has been missing
by having a nanny doing the day-to-day raising
of her children. If you have children and are
either working or staying home and raising your
kids, how do you feel about the choice you’ve
made? What are you missing by not having made
a different choice? How do two parents with demanding
careers give their children the attention they
deserve?
10.
The author wrote The Ivy Chronicles after
owning a business that helped New Yorkers get
their children into the city’s best schools.
Have you ever wanted to write a book based on
your own experiences? Would it be fiction or non-fiction?
What are some of the great stories you could tell?
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