Pos-i-tute-ly Outstanding: A Review of Libba Bray’s “The Diviners”

 Goodreads.com Description: “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, Ziegfeld 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 is running from her past. A student named Jericho hides a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened.”

About the Author

Libba Bray is the New York Times bestselling author of The Gemma Doyle trilogy (A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, The Sweet Far Thing); the Michael L. Printz Award-winningGoing Bovine; Beauty Queens, an L.A. Times Book Prize finalist; and The Diviners series. She is originally from Texas but makes her home in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband, son, and two sociopathic cats.  You can find her at…oh, wait. You already did. Never mind—you are a genius!

Find Libba online:

Website: http://libbabray.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LibbaBrayAuthor

Twitter: @libbabray

Tumblr: http://libbabraysactualblog.tumblr.com/

My Review

Libba Bray’s The Diviners is a brilliantly awesome historical paranormal! It is creepy and well-written with very strong imagery. This epic tale was very well-researched and included snippets of all of Bray’s efforts.

I loved the characters! My favorites were Evie, Theta, Memphis, Sam and Jericho. Evie was the perfect protagonist. She was strong with tons of spunk and moxie. She was surrounded by a cast of complex, well-developed characters. Theta, Memphis and Sam were tortured souls with survival instincts embedded in their DNA. The epitome of tortured souls was Jericho who was simply a victim of circumstance. He never asked for the life he was given, and Evie accepted him just the way he was.

Bray ingeniously worked in so much research in every detail. The nightlife in Manhattan and Harlem, the buildings and even the fashion at the time. She even placed a thread of steampunk in this tale. I won’t divulge how she did it. I don’t want to give away any of this fabulous story.

Mind you The Diviners is a lengthy tome. Nearly 600 pages, but it’s so worth the read!

My favorite passage in Bray’s imaginative story was delivered by Will, Evie’s uncle: “There is no greater power on this earth than story….People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense–words do. Beliefs, declarations, constitutions–words. Stories. Myths. Lies. Promises. History.”

Simply outstanding!

The second book, Lair of Dreams, is due this month.

Rating: 

(5 Hands=Excellent; 4 Hands=Pretty Good; 3 Hands=Good)