Title: The Diviners
Author: Libba Bray
Source: Library (but I am going to buy it!)
Goodreads Summary:
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.
My thoughts:
This book was the bees knees, the elephants eyebrow, I
pos-i-tute-ly loved it! It was the
perfect blending of two of my favorite things to read about: flappers and the
supernatural. I have to admit, when I first heard that Bray was mixing these
two, I was unsure and skeptical. I wasn’t sure I could read it, and if I did,
if I would like it. Well, Bray definitely stomped all over those worries while doing
the Charleston. (Which, incidentally, I
learned my friend Kelly can do really well.
We believe we were flappers together in a past life.)
Evie O’Neil is flighty, a good time girl, who doesn’t take
anything seriously except finding the gin and getting dolled up to go out
dancing. She also has a secret- she is a
medium, and if she has an object of yours, can see the past. She uses this as a party trick but divulges
the wrong secret, and is sent to live in
New York City with her uncle. I have no
idea why her parents thought that would be a punishment, but there you go. Evie
is of course thrilled, but keeping her feelings on the down low. Anyway, the real story begins once she is in
New York.
Evie moves in with her uncle, into the Bennington. She meets her Uncle Will’s museum assistant Jericho,
and thinks he is a bit of a bore but she doesn’t dislike him, since her best
friend Mabel, who lives in the Bennington, has had a huge crush on him for
three years. Evie plans to get them together. She also meets Theta and Henry,
who live in the building as well – Theta is a flapper who performs in the
Ziegfield Follies, and Henry is a piano player. The final member of Evie’s
circle is Sam, a pickpocket and thief who robbed her in the first hour she was
in New York. The backstory for these
characters is really one of the best parts of this book. I think each character
is so well developed and interesting in their own right, that you want to know
about all of them, not just Evie, who is not as superficial as she seems sometimes.
There is of course the central mystery- a serial killer that
the group is trying to stop. This part
of the story was actually kind of scary and creepy. Kudos to Bray for giving me
the heebie-jeebies, that is not always easy. There were a few things I would
have liked wrapped up a little bit neater, but all in all it was very well
done. An ancient evil, a book, a riddle, death – yikes!
Yet this time was not all shiny and bright, scuffed dancing
shoes, bathtub gin and bubbly. And Bray
did not shirk away from including the prejudices of the era. She touched on the
Ku Klux Klan, the relationships such as interracial and homosexual that were
not allowed and hidden, and eugenics. I
had no idea that State Fairs had tents set up with great big signs with neon
lights extolling the virtues of eugenics. Of the health contests, where people
could earn bronze medals inscribed with “Yea, I be of goodly heritage” for
having the desired (at the time) background. How disgusting and sickening, to
think we could breed a better race of people. To me, this was the scariest part
of the book, made more frightening as it was true.
I really enjoyed this book – when I finished it I just
wanted to read it all over again. I even got past all the slang, which annoyed
me in the beginning. I was entertained,
I was scared, I was cheering Evie on. And most importantly, I learned a few things.
