The Diviners - Libba Bray

Publication Details

Published by Little Brown Books on September 19th 2012

578 pages

65 chapters

Synopsis

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.

Review (SPOILER FREE)

Let's start with the writing style. Libba Bray's writing style is amazingly addictive! From the very first page I knew I was going to love this story and the way that it's written. Bray writes so fluently and majestically that you get so sucked into the story and become consumed in a way that enhances the experience and makes you want to keep reading and reading. I definitely felt like Bray's writing style is at a level that is both detailed and intricate yet simplistic and understandable so that you can easily paint a picture in your mind of the 1920's New York City that this book takes place in. Also, Libba's description of characters are extremely well done, I felt like I could easily picture each and every one of them in my mind whenever that appeared in the book, which is a definite bonus for me. Sometimes when a secondary character is introduced in a book near the beginning and they only appear here and there, I'll find myself going back and re-reading the description in order to re-create the image of that character that I had in my mind, whereas with The Diviners, I didn't need to do that because Libba's writing style and descriptions are so memorable that it's almost impossible to forget the minor details.

Now onto Evie O'Niell. I feel like this character is so relatable in some ways that it's kind of strange to read about a character that you can relate to so well, especially in comparison to past characters that you've read. Evie is such a 'normal' person in a lot of ways and that is the reason that I loved her as much as I did, it made her exciting to read about and interesting - you never really knew what decisions she would make, or what she would do next, she was unpredictable. She was also quite a funny character, there were several instances where I was laughing and giggling to myself at the things she would say - which definitely enhanced my love for her. Another unique factor to Evie's character was the fact that she had the ability to read people's deepest, darkest secrets just by holding an object that they own. This whole topic then goes on to be better developed as the book progresses.
So I want to talk about more characters, but I feel like I can only really discuss Evie in a way that will do the character some sort of justice. So I'm just going to say this about the rest of the characters: I loved them all, there are even characters in this book that I love to hate, which is always a huge bonus for me personally.

So one last thing I want to discuss before I wrap this up is that I did have one slight (very slight) issue with the plot of this book. Basically, the whole "Diviners" concept wasn't mentioned as much as I expected. Keeping in mind that I use the term 'issue' here extremely loosely. A huge part of this book is filled with mystery, which a lot of people might not suspect. I'm a huge lover of mystery so this if anything helped my experience with this book, however, it did take away a little from the "Diviners" concept - which you'll have to read to learn about yourself. Anyway, I feel like Libba Bray managed to balance these two concepts together extremely well in a way that kept the book enjoyable and exciting.

So overall, I loved this book so much! Keeping in mind that it is a huge book, I flew through this - it took me about 5/6 days to read it! I would have read it much quicker, but I had to put it down every so often because I was so surprised and overwhelmed at how amazing it was, that I had to take some time to absorb everything that was going on. I definitely recommend that you pick this book up! It has most definitely managed to get into my Favourites of 2012! Also, the sequel (unknown title) is released next year! WOOHOO!

5 out of 5 stars

Check out my YouTube video review of The Diviners!