The Diviners Review

The Diviners by Libba Bray
Narrator: January LaVoy
Series: The Diviners #1
Published by Hachette Digital, Inc. on 2012-09-18
Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
Genres: Mysteries & Detective Stories, Paranormal, Young Adult
Pages: 584
Format: Audiobook
Goodreads

Do you believe there are ghosts and demons and Diviners among us?Evie O'Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City--and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It's 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult.Evie worries he'll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfurled in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho hides a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened....Printz Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Libba Bray opens a brand-new historical series with The Diviners, where the glittering surface of the Roaring Twenties hides a mystical horror creeping across the country.

 Julie’s Review:

In Short: The Diviners was on my TBR for a while now and I bought the ebook when it was a daily deal. I finally got around to reading it when Rose’s book club picked it for February, but since I’m moving I knew I wouldn’t have time to actually read the book, so I got the audio as well. Overall I say it is a pretty good book and while it was slow at the beginning it got pretty interesting and set up for a cool series.

Characters: I really didn’t like Evie at first, she was spoiled and bratty and all she cared about were parties and booze. (Typical teenager? in the 1920s?) So she gets herself in trouble and her family sends her to stay with an uncle (who she lovingly calls Unc) in New York. There, she gets involved in trying to solve a string of murders with her unique ability (she’s a Diviner, and can get glimpses of what people saw or did from an object). Once she realizes what she can do and really gets involved in the case, she really does mature and becomes a really interesting character.

I thought Sam Lloyd was pretty funny. He’s the trickster pick-pocket who is around for comedic relief. But he has an agenda and I think we’ll figure it out in the upcoming books.

Jericho, well, he’s something else. I didn’t like him at first (kind of like Evie didn’t), but I guess he grew on me. Though his deal, well without spoilers I’ll just say it was really weird. I thought we were in a historical fantasy but for some reason it felt like sci-fi all of a sudden. Kinda strange, but, it seemed to work to make him feel different and alone until he met Evie and got to know her abilities.

Plot: The plot really started out slow and for a HUGE book like this, that is really a turn off. But, I just listened while packing boxes and eventually forgot that it was slow and got into the story. The big bad in the book is a supernatural thing, and Evie, Unc, et al try various things to stop the guy, with a final success at in the nick of time. (Right, isn’t that how these stories go?)

Other Thoughts: I really like how the author did a lot of research into the time period to make the conversations and descriptions feel real. I thought the narration was pretty good as well and would recommend the audiobook for this read.

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