The Diviners by Libba Bray

The Diviners was well written and I appreciated the aesthetic of the roaring '20s. On the other hand, damn anyone for taking bible verses out of context!! UGH! It makes me want to gag! I mean the world is full of crazies just like the Brethren in the Pillar of Fire Church.

A sinister entity was let loose via a group of unsuspecting and drunk partygoers playing with an ouija board. I was blown away with the semblance that something dark and terrible now resides in a cellar of a dilapidated house!! Admittedly I was terrified mmk?
I don’t like Ouija boards because I BELIEVE what the Catholic Church says about it. Nuff said.

We follow the protagonist Evie O’Neill - a 17-year-old who is sent away to New York City to live with her Uncle who is a professor in the Museum of Creepy Crawlies BECAUSE she gets in trouble for indiscriminately using her gifts. Evie could tell things about a person simply by touching an object belonging to them. She is a diviner. Many call themselves diviners who have different abilities. Her powers can get her into trouble because it is equivalent to stealing; stealing people's secrets.

The 1920s were a time of dance marathons and the charleston and Ziegfeld girls, flapper dresses and ‘bobbed’ hairstyles. When Evie arrives in New York Penn station she meets Sam Lloyd, a pickpocket, thief and diviner who can slip away without being seen whenever he wishes. He ends up stealing 20 dollars from her and she swears vengeance if she ever saw him again. Their relationship is heavily flirtatious. She is excited to see her friend Mabel who is very smart and lives with her parents in the same fancy hotel as her Uncle. It is here they meet Theta Knight a Ziegfeld girl, also a diviner.

When Evie has earned her uncle's trust, she subsequently becomes more of an asset to the museum of creepy crawlies and in the murder investigations that are occurring around the city. She is finally allowed to use her ability to catch a serial killer, and she reminds me a bit of Buffy the vampire slayer. Naughty John Hobbes is the killer who happens to be an old dead person who is vying for the position of antichrist! The police require the expertise of Will Fitzgerald because of the nature of the crimes. The victims are seen having weird symbols carved into their flesh and uncle Will is an expert in weird occult symbols and objects.
I didn’t realize it was going to be so scary and I can't wait to find out more in Lair of Dreams.

It takes a special talent to write a 600 plus page book and have zero character development. I am also perplexed that it took to the 80 plus percent mark (according to my Kindle) before all of the characters even met up to fight to "Big Bad" in this book. Evie and Sam are awful. I wish that one or both of their characters would get killed off. It's also really annoying the love rectangle will be continuing through to a third book. At this point all parties need to leave each other alone. There is also way too much repetitiveness in this one. 

"Lair of Dreams" takes place a few days/weeks after the events in book #1. You still have Evie focused on being famous and now using her talents to perform a nightly show in which she reads people's items. Evie is estranged from her Uncle Will, and still hates Sam, and regrets kissing/being into Jericho. You follow all of that? From there the book jumps around to each of the characters we are familiar with, Will, Jericho, Sam, Theta, Memphis, Henry, and Mabel. You will be happy to know that all of these characters are still singing the same song from the last book, i.e. still focused on their dreams of being famous or successful and just generally self absorbed to the max.

Bray includes a new character, Ling, who was the only bright spot in this whole book. I was wishing that the majority of the book was her, her family, and the people in Chinatown.

Unfortunately we go back and forth between all of these characters, and a few others I am thinking about. Bray includes details on a sleeping sickness that is killing those in New York, specifically Chinatown. Along with that, we have Ling and Henry meeting up and becoming close friends after they realize that they both can dream walk. 

I don't even know how to review this book properly. Seriously, nothing happens. You have Evie and Sam cooked up in the dumbest scheme ever with them pretending to be engaged cause now that the Fitzgeralds have left New York, they have taken up their mantle. IT MAKES NO SENSE! If you are going to talk about the Roaring Twenties at all, why in the world are you acting like the Fitzgeralds were the only ones running around? Also Evie and freaking Sam are not literary figures like F. Scott, Hemingway, and Stein. It wasn't about people running around and drinking if you are talking about the Lost Generation folks. I am still flabbergasted there was no discussion of women's rights or anything else that was going on in this country or others at the same time. This is my own fault, I should have known better than to read a book taking place in a pretty significant historical moment in history, I was just irritated the entire time.

Jericho and Mabel are the saddest people ever. The end.

Theta and Memphis. Sigh. I Memphis is African American, Theta is not. We get one scene in which they go out and Theta acts like an ass (because she's keeping a secret from Memphis) and there are lots of inner monologue from Memphis about being out with a white woman, and how eventually he is going to be like Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. I don't think that the character of Bray gets that being famous doesn't equal that somehow racism wasn't going to be a thing anymore. I just found Memphis naive as hell. 

Henry and Theta have friction due to Henry dream walking more and more and then him getting tied up with Ling. Ling has her own set of issues and frustrations and she is starting to want to dream just as long as Henry since the real world is pretty terrible.

Ling though and some other characters start to sense that the sleeping sickness is more than what they initially thought and it takes a really long time for the character to figure out what is going on and stop things.

I honestly just found myself wishing that the book could stay focused on a character for more than a couple of pages. This needed edited for length/clarity so badly. At times I just found myself skimming because I didn't need to read one more scene where Evie and Sam acted like assholes to each other. The flow was awful from beginning to end. If all of your characters don't meet until the 80 percent point of your book something is wrong. The fact that Bray had them all come together to save someone close to them was a laugh and a half. The most anti-climatic fight scenes ever. Nothing made sense. And then in the end for them to all say, well maybe what we did mattered, or maybe it didn't made me want to pull my hair out.

The world-building in "The Diviners" just needs improved. Bray foreshadows that some big government secret is about to blow and maybe all of these people and their powers are a direct result of that. I just don't care and am glad I am not going anywhere near the third and soon to be published fourth book in this series.

The ending was just a cliffhanger to set up book number 3 and I hate that in books. Even if you have a book that is part of a series, each arc for that book should be finished by the time you get to the end. It just reads as if you can't come up with a good ending so you are just going to continue on. 

Hey Dolls and how are you?! I hope you are all Jake! I am doing pretty Jake myself. I would have gotten this review up a long time ago, but one laziness set in. And just when I was ready to put this one up. There was an unexpected death in my family and it has been a very hard week last week for us all. But, now I am back and just going to do a quick review on "The Diviners" by Libba Bray.

The Blurb:

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, Ziegeld 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 he'll 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 running from her past. A student named Jericho hides a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened...

Yeah had to use the book's blurb it's hard right now to come up with one.

Even thou this story has been around for awhile and I just now got around to reading it. It's a very good one. I enjoyed the dive into the 20's vibe and loving the slang that is used for the story. There were some points that had gotten me angry, and some that had me rooting for the characters.

Evie is one of those characters that you have a like/not like moment. Along with her best friend Mabel. 

Theta is has become a favorite of mine along with her brother (gay best friend) Henry. Reading about Theta's past was heartbreaking for me. But, she has become a tough cookie! 

Memphis is a young man with good intentions, but going about it wrong. But, he is someone that you can enjoy reading about. 

Jericho is just a guy who really wants to feel normal. He turns out to be really sweet. 

Evie's Uncle Will is interesting, but can be a bit of a pain.

 There are other characters that need to be mentioned Isaiah (Memphis's little brother) who is quite powerful, Sam (a street hustler) has a secret as well, & Sister Walker who helps Isaiah strengthen his power

Then, there is the villain who was quite disturbing and needed to just go right away, but of course that's not how you write a story lol! And the name Naughty John, that doesn't sound right to me! ha ha!

But, all in all it was a really good read and I did enjoy it! I wouldn't mind continuing the series and see what new villain comes along. I would recommend this one for those who love supernatural stories, 1920's vibe, and just a start of a new series. 

Well, that's all I have for you all today. I hope you enjoy this all over the place review and it might not make sense. Be on the look out for another review, maybe tomorrow. I will do my best to, because I have promised myself to do something more on here. Enjoy your reads and your Summer!

IN SUMMER!!!  

Before the Devil Breaks You: The Diviner...

Sigh. I have very mixed feelings about this. I love the first one, enjoyed the second one and feel like this book three is very fillerish for the final book. A lot of the scaryness is gone. It's very political and not at all why I started this series and got so invested. I'm one of those people that like to read, be entertained without the necessities of making everything political. 

I love Theta and Memphis. They are probably my favorite characters in the book. Jericho didn't do much this time around and even Evie was a little boring at times. Its a long one and half of it wasn't necessary. 

I'll still read the next one but I'm hoping Libba Bray has more of that scary, ghostly goodness left for this series.