The Diviners (The Diviners #1)

The Diviners is outstanding book. Libba Bray did a beautifully job in portal us to the 1920s. The writing is so vivd that I felt I was dancing to up beat Jazz music with flappers. I will admit there are some dry spots, but it's really enjoyable that you forget because other things are happening.

My favorite character is Sam Lloyd. I love him! I'm still rooting for Evie and Sam. I'll like for them to get up together. Theta is also great, and you respect her more after you find out about her back story. She's not just a sassy chorus girl, but a strong and independent women.

I heard it's going to be a saga, and I'm so excited for the next book in this promising series.

I absolutely loved this one. It had so many elements that I enjoy all wrapped up into one *humongous* book. It had mystery, suspense and awesome characters along with many more. This book was intimidating by the sheer size alone but I am so glad that I finally decided just to read it even if it ended up taking a while. It was so engaging however, that it only took me about a week to get through 578 pages.

I love books set in the 1920's. It's one of my favorite time periods to read about especially when it's set in New York and features speak-easies. There's just something that is so fun about the time and when a crazy killer is thrown into the mix then it just becomes even better.

I really liked Evie. She was so sassy and she did what she wanted to without worrying about the consequences. That being said she was still rather intelligent and she knew how to have fun. I was really hoping that she would get together with Jericho, but there is always the sequel to see where things will go between those two. Speaking of Jericho, I did not see that revelation about him coming. I would never have guessed that was what was up with him, I honestly thought he was a diviner.

I found myself alternating between hoping that Naughty John would make another appearance and praying that he wouldn't. He was a really cool character but he honestly really creeped me out. That whole rhyme that goes with his name? Had me freaked out at night and yet I couldn't stop saying it to myself.

If you're a fan of ghost stories as well as the glitz and glamor of the roaring 20's then I definitely recommend this one. Libba Bray definitely knows how to mix the two and keep it true to the time period while adding the elements that make this novel exciting and downright creepy at times. I cannot wait to see where this series goes next!

Background: Mysterious things are happening in New York City, and luckily Evie O'Neill has been sent there to live with her professor, uncle Will. Little does she know that a case involving the occult, murder, and spirits will engulf her life as she comes to realize that not everything is as it seems. Libba Bray tells the spooky tale of random people on the city and how they become involved in the lives or one another.

Review: this was a LONG book! I got the chance to review an audio copy of The Diviners and was super excited to get started listening, sadly it has taken forever to get through, and I am not sure why. The reader is awesome and does very distinctive male and female voices for each of the characters- which also helped me to keep track of them all- there were quite a few. Of all the characters I had the hardest time coming to like Evie, the main character, she tends to be rude and stuck up and she was very self centered most of the story. I enjoyed uncle Will the quirky professor of the strange and unusual and think that would be an awesome profession. The others characters were also easy to follow but the story for q good portion seemed so fragmented by the multiple stories and how they didn't really overlap. In the end, it starts to make a little more sense, but like I mentioned it did take a good chunk of time to get through it all.
The plot was super spooky and eerie, there were a few moments that I had to switch it off because I was alone driving in the dark, granted I am a huge chicken, but still creepy. The author does an awesome job with details throughout, you will not believe the beautiful picture she portrays of the roaring 20's in NYC. I was listening while also in the evenings watching Boardwalk Empire and it all kind of painted a cool picture in my head of the types of people and parties during the period.
Without giving too much away, I have to say that the bad guy was appealingly grotesque in all the right ways.
If you haven't picked this up yet, please do as soon as you can

"Naughty John, Naughty John, does his work with his apron on. Cuts your throat and takes your bones, sells them off for a couple of stones."

Evangeline O'Neill, AKA Evie, is a seventeen year old, rebellious troublemaker. Who is sent away from her home in Ohio to New York, because of a stunt she pulled at a party. She is sent to live with her uncle Will, curator of the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, which is more commonly known as the Museum of Creepy Crawlies. For a bit, everything seems perfect. But then there are mysterious murders in the city, and she has to struggle to keep her own special ability secret.

This is a pretty scary book, and I think that this book would have probably gotten a lower rating if it hadn't been. With the whole whistling thing, and Naughty John comes and kills you and then takes your eyes/tongue/arms/legs? Yeeeahh.... Watch out.

Now, I know this book's length looks intimidating. It took me a while to fully get into it, maybe 100 pages, but after that slow part, this book is really entertaining.

I had a few problems with this book, the biggest and foremost being Evie. Ugh, she just BUGGED me so much. At first I thought she was shallow and selfish, and guess what? At the end, she STILL seemed shallow and selfish. I mean, seriously. You have a clairvoyant ability. You don't just go blurting it to the first people you meet just because you want attention, or want to stay in the spotlight. evie was blurting ALL her secrets just to stay under the spotlight, and that really grated on my nerves. Then at the end, I was thinking "Well, that's good, she's probably learned her lesson about blurting to the reporters, and guess what? She's STILL blurting all her secrets to stay in the spotlight. She's just never anything more to me than a 1920's shallow stereotypes spouting annoying phrases.

There were also too many pointless side characters. Let me name a few. Sam Lloyd, whose only job was to hint at what will come,Blind John, whose job was the same, Memphis, whose job was the same, Isaiah, whose job was the same, Theta, who did the same, Henry, who, surprise, surprise, did the same, and Mabel, who just seemed pretty useless in general, except maybe to provide more drama in the whole romance part.

So, when we have all these side characters, each with their own side plot which pretty much has nothing to do with the story at all, reading their parts starts to feel like a chore.

Now that you know about all the parts that made me feel really annoyed, you may be asking, "Well, where's the good stuff?" Here it is. Some of the scenes were really good, (mostly the murder scenes and the parts where there was actually running around). The way Bray writes makes some of the scenes so spooky and awesome, and it's really sad when the shallow characters kind of ruin that feel for me.

It was hard to rate this book because some parts were really good, and other parts were just... meh.