The Diviners: Number 1 in series [Hardcover]

The Diviners is my first book by Libba Bray, but I can tell you right now that it won't be my last. I'm thrilled to have discovered another YA author of such talent and prominence. I would have given her a chance even before now, especially considering all the raving reviews written by my most trusted friends, but I simply never got around to it. Fortunately, she left me no choice with The Diviners. New York in the 1920s was impossible to resist.

I'll start with my favorite part - the setting. Libba Bray did an extraordinary job in taking her readers to New York during the Prohibition era. I could hear the music and the laughter, smell the forbidden alcohol, and it made me want to put on a flapper hat and dance my feet right off. I could spend an eternity reading about the Roaring Twenties, and the ghost of a serial killer only made it that much more interesting.

Yup, you read that right: there's a ghost of a vicious serial killer on the loose, and the only ones with any chance of stopping him are an 18-year-old psychic girl and a group of people that share the same dream. Even Evie's uncle Will, who runs The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition and the Occult, also known as The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies, is powerless against this murderous ghost. And if that isn't enough to freak you out, there are religious fanatics involved as well, and seriously, nothing is creepier than that.

To be quite honest, there were parts of this book that were a bit hard to get through. I'm not a fan of 3rd person, multiple points of view narrative to begin with, and The Diviners offered far too many perspectives for my taste. It's so hard to connect with the characters that way, and Evie was the only one I really felt close too.

To top that off, Evie was a hard character to like. She was occasionally self-centered and a little too care-free. (I'm very organized and responsible and people who just breeze through life tend to annoy me.) But there were times when I felt I truly understood why she behaved in such a way, and I could connect with her regardless of her frustrating actions. The loss of a family hero, Evie's older brother, damaged her family irreparably, and acting out was her way to cope.

But don't let my ranting or those 600 pages scare you off. The Diviners is a book worth reading, although it will force you to read slowly and carefully - something I'm not quite used to. Bray's talent for creating an eerie atmosphere is matched only by her intelligent humor. At times, I had to fight the urge to hide under my bed, only to burst out laughing five minutes later at something witty Evie said.

Make no mistake, The Diviners is a demanding book. It requires your full attention, but whatever it takes, it gives back tenfold. If I were you I wouldn't hesitate to pick it up. As for me, I'll just sit right here, very patiently and without making a sound, and wait for Libba Bray to finish the sequel. Some things were left unsaid and I need to know, need to know, needtoknowneedtoknowneedtoknow... Oh, shut up, brain!

I was extremely impressed with how well this book invoked it's setting - 1920s New York has never seemed more vivid and Bray does a wonderful job sucking you into the past.

There's a lot to like here. Bray's style has fluency, the book keeps up the creep factor and the characters are well drawn (though Evie's not especially likable). The problem I found was with pacing - she spends so long drawing out the characters that it takes a massive chunk of the book. Later events feel a little squeezed for space as a result.

STill, the test of book 1 is always whether or not I want to pick up book 2 - and I do!

Yet again I bow down before Libba Bray's enormous talent. I haven't read a single book of hers that would have left me disappointed, and I honestly don't think it's ever going to happen...

The Diviners starts a tad slow but soon enough you immerse yourself in an absolutely enchanting, boisterous and vivid atmosphere of roaring 20s.

The book starts with a combination of main characters living their separate lives: Evie, cheeky and bold 17-year old arrives to new York to live with her uncle, who owns the museum of Creepy Crawlies (or Folk Art and Superstitions); Sam, a young thief tries to save enough money to find his mother; Memphis supports his younger brother by running numbers for his clients; Theta and Henry live the fabulous artsy life of Ziegfried theatre pretending to be a brother and sister; and quiet and studious Jericho works for Evie's uncle, Will.

These young people don't realise that a supernatural storm is brewing, and the unique abilities they have is the only thing that can help them survive and save people they love. In that regard The Diviners is only the first act of the play which lays ground for the events that will be unfolding in the next book.

Evie's uncle starts helping New York's police with the investigation of gruesome occult murders, and the more he digs into it the clearer it becomes that if the murderer is not stopped in time, he'll bring on the Apocalypse.

Essentially it's the murderer who connects the young supernaturally talented people and forces them to work together, and the plot itself is intricate, complex and fascinating.

However, it's the atmosphere, the carefully researched spirit of time, the slang of young carefree generation that ultimately wins the reader over. It's gorgeous and and it brings 1920s alive before our eyes.

QUOTE: "What Evie needed was a little hair of the dog, but her parents had confiscated her hip flask. It was a swell flask, too--silver, with the initials of Charles Warren etched into it. Good old Charlie, the dear. She'd promised to be his girl. That lasted a week. Charlie was a darling, but also a thudding bore. His idea of petting was to place a hand stiffly on a girl's chest like a starched doily on some maiden aunt's side table while pecking, birdlike, at her mouth. Quelle tragédie." END QUOTE

QUOTE: "Theta crashed next to them on the thick zebra-skin rug. "I'm embalmed."

"Potted and splificated?"

"Ossified to the gills. Time for night-night." END QUOTE

QUOTE: "Hey," the cabbie yelled. "How's about a tip?"

"You bet-ski," Evie said, heading toward the old Victorian mansion, her long silk scarf trailing behind her. "Don't kiss strange men in Penn Station." END QUOTE

I'd better stop now, peeps. There are just too many wonderful things about this book which I want you to discover for yourself. So, borrow it from your library, buy it, depending on what you can afford (I know hardback price was a bit steep for me, so I've waited for my library to get it), but don't miss out on this book, because it's well worth your attention.