Book Review: The Diviners

The Diviners by Libba Bray

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I'm going to go ahead and give this book a four, though I would rather rate it a 3.5 or a 3.75. But Bray is one of my favorite YA authors--I think "The Sweet Far Thing," "Going Bovine," and "Beauty Queens," are classics of the genre. This book didn't quite add up for me, however. It may have been the 1920s slang, which makes everyone sound shallow and facile. I didn't much like most of the main characters (with the exception of Memphis and Sam, who I think have some really interesting stuff ahead of them), and there are a lot of them. I also didn't feel much in the way of sexual tension throughout the book. But there are a lot of period details here, some very interesting stuff, and a genuinely creepy horror element that actually gave me nightmares for two nights (though admittedly, I have a very low tolerance for demonic human sacrifice--my own personal heebie jeebie). The plot spins along; it's a very fast read, though there are not a lot of questions answered at the end, and I felt a bit frustrated at that. Still, I'm a big fan, and I've been here with Bray before--I felt the beginning of the Gemma Doyle trilogy was a bit slow too, and she absolutely slayed me by the last book. So I'm hanging in there for this trilogy too.



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