Review: The Diviners

The Diviners by Libba Bray

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: September 18th 2012
Pages: 592 
Source: Library
Genre: Mystery, Historical
Goodreads

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-toot-ly thrilled. New York is the city of speakeasies, shopping, and movie palaces! Soon enough, Evie is running with glamorous Ziegfield girls and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is Evie has to live with her Uncle Will, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult--also known as "The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies."

When a rash of occult-based murders comes to light, Evie and her uncle are right in the thick of the investigation. And through it all, Evie has a secret: a mysterious power that could help catch the killer--if he doesn't catch her first.

I remember this book being highly anticipated awhile ago, and I knew from the moment I heard about it that I would probably end up reading it some day. This is my first ever Libba Bray book (I know, bad Erika) and I quite enjoyed it. I'm not sure if all of her  books are as interesting as this one, but I might have to give her other books a try some day as well.

My number one favorite part of this book was the setting. The Diviners is set in New York in 1926, at the height of the roaring twenties. The setting is both beautiful and exciting, as well as full of great information and overall is really just very fun! I'm usually  not one who loves historical novels, but this one was just wonderful.

The story takes place in all sorts of places in New York, from the richer side, to the slums. I think it was very interesting to see all of the different sides of the era, as well as the people effected by those different conditions. 

Continuing with the topic of the setting, there was a lot of 20's slang in The Diviners. I liked some of the slang, but some of it felt a little too pushed and just weird... but it might be because I'm not used to the slang? Not sure.

The characters. There were a lot of them. The story is told in 3rd person, though prominently follows Evie, a 17 year old Flapper girl from Ohio that has a unique ability to sense imprints off of objects. The other characters the story follows include Memphis, Sam, and Theta, all characters also have differing abilities. Though I liked all of the characters, all the characters got REALLY confusing. Sometimes I couldn't know who was who.

Another really great part of the book was the mystery. I really love good mystery stories, and this one was defiantly well done. The process in which all of the clues were gathered, and how things were gathered was very well done. The only thing I thought was a little weird about the whole mystery thing was it was VERY paranormal based, and that made it a little hard to understand at times.

Occasionally this story was a little bit slow due to it's length, but otherwise It was a really great story that I highly recommend.