Author- Libba Bray
Series- The Diviners
Published- 2012
Page Count- 578 (18 hours audiobook time)
Publishing House- Little Brown Books
Rating- 4.5/5 stars
Note- I listened to this on audiobook so the stats are for the audiobook
About the Author
Libba Bray is the New York Times bestselling author of The Gemma Doyle trilogy (A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, The Sweet Far Thing); the Michael L. Printz Award-winning Going Bovine; Beauty Queens, an L.A. Times Book Prize finalist; and The Diviners series. She is originally from Texas but makes her home in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband, son, and two sociopathic cats. You can find her at…oh, wait. You already did. Nevermind—you are a genius!
Taken from Libba's website
Plot
SOMETHING DARK AND EVIL HAS AWAKENED… 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 her uncle will 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 unfold 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 is hiding a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened…
Taken from Goodreads
Opinions
Just before I cancelled my audible subscription in November/December 2019, I decided to get a copy of the Diviners. I kept on forgetting that I had to listen to it. I started going on a lot more walks than normal during lockdown, so to fill the half an hour I was outside, I would listen to it. I would recommend the audiobooks as the bits that are about music or sung are actually sung by the audiobook narrator. I decided to get this because I had seen emmmabooks rave about it for several years and it did sound really interesting.
At first, it was quite slow to get into. I knew that it was supposed to be about some kind of murder mystery and the first few hours were about getting to know the characters. It wasn't until I had listened to maybe a quarter of the book that the characters started to investigate the murders. While it was a slowish start, I did quite like trying to figure out how these characters were all connected. It was like I was trying to solve my own little mystery.
One of the things that made me fall in love with this series was the cast of characters. It has one of the best set of characters I've encountered. Evie was a character I fell for instantly. She has that quality that I really like in female characters of them being no nonsense. She was fierce and fun. Theta was also another character I adored. Each character had something unique about them and they all felt very real. Asides from the characters you weren't supposed to like, there wasn't a character I didn't adore.
The other thing that made me really enjoy this book was the detailed world building. Libba clearly researched the hell out of 1920s New York. The world felt so well developed. The backstory of every character was explored, but it never felt like you were being told random things that derailed the story. The "magic" system of the Diviners was well explained and you believed these individuals had these incredible powers.
Since finishing the audiobook of The Diviners, I have bought all the other books in the series in physical format. I am so excited to continue with this series. There have been very few books like this that I've felt like this about in the past year or so. It had great characters and an amazing setting. I am very excited to see where this series goes. If you enjoy YA Paranormal books, then I would recommend this one.
Carenza :) x
