Review: The Diviners by Libba Bray

Title: The Diviners
Author: Libba Bray
Series: The Diviners #1
Genre: Historical Fiction Urban Fantasy (YA)
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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. Summary from Back Cover

There are a few very minor spoilers in this review, but it won’t ruin the book for you.

It took me three months to read The Diviners and it’s not because I wasn’t interested in it. I actually wanted to read it faster, but I just didn’t have the time. In fact, this is the first book I’ve read by Libba Bray and I can’t wait to read more of hers. She’s definitely my kind of author!

“Naughty John, Naughty John, does his work with his apron on. Cuts your throat and takes your bones. Sells ‘em off for a coupla stones.” Naughty John

The Diviners was creepy, fun, interesting, suspenseful, and even a little bit romantic. I loved being thrown into 1920s New York City and experiencing all the fun of that era. I almost want to become a flapper myself now.

There are a lot of characters in this book. My favorite characters were Evie, Jericho, Memphis, Theta, and Henry. The story is mostly told in a third-person limited perspective from Evie’s and Memphis’s point-of-views. You do get to get in the head of several other characters, though, and I loved experiencing the story from so many different perspective’s and trying to piece it together. It was a little hard to keep them all straight at times, but I think that’s because I took so long to read the book.

I found the supernatural aspects of the story very intriguing, especially when the characters talked about the Occult and religion in general. It made for a very interesting read and mystery. I also thought it was fun to see a shout out about my religion in the book.

While The Diviners does have its own story arc, including a resolution, it’s definitely a set up novel to help readers become familiar with the characters and the world. “The Diviners” were hinted at several times during the story, but at this point, we still don’t know much about them other than that they have different supernatural-type powers and that they’ll be needed and important to stop the end of the world. I’m very interested to see how they’ll be needed and what types of things will lead up to the apocalypse in this series.

I can’t wait to see how the series unfolds and experience the next set of adventures in the upcoming books in this series. I’m also kind of excited to see if there’s going to be a bit of a love triangle and who’ll end up together by the end.