Review: The Diviners by Libba Bray

The Diviners (The Diviners #1)
By Libba Bray
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

To Sum It Up:

After finding herself at the center of a scandal in her small Ohio town of Zenith, seventeen-year-old Evie O’Neill is shipped off to New York City to live with her Uncle Will. Evie doesn’t mind in the least because this is her chance to make a name for herself amidst the bright lights of the Big Apple. When her uncle, the curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, is called in to assist the police with a murder investigation, Evie jumps at the chance to get both the museum and her name in the papers. She’s about to discover that the secret talent that got her exiled from Zenith could prove extremely useful in tracking down what turns out to be a serial killer. Evie believes that she’s the only one hiding a supernatural gift, but whether she realizes it or not, she’ll soon cross paths with several others who can do extraordinary things, too.

Review:

What a fantastic read The Diviners was! I’d never read any YA novels set during the Roaring Twenties before, or any books by Libba Bray for that matter, and this was one unique novel. The setting, the characters, and the paranormal element were all so fresh, and together they formed a mesmerizing read that I couldn’t put down, even in the middle of the night when I got pretty creeped out.

I wasn’t all that fond of Evie at first. I found her immature, selfish, and annoyingly self-promoting. All she could think about upon her arrival in New York was how to become a household name. At first it’s potential fame that drives Evie’s interest in her Uncle Will’s consultations with the New York police regarding a string of murders that appear to be ritualistic. As Evie becomes more and more involved with the case and witnesses some truly appalling sights, though, her focus shifts from seeking celebrity to stopping a killer. She grows up quite a bit over the course of the novel, and by the end, I liked her a lot.

The Diviners features a fairly long roster of characters in addition to Evie, all with their own richly detailed stories to tell. There’s Memphis Campbell, a numbers runner whose healing ability disappeared after he failed to save his dying mother; Theta Knight, a Ziegfeld Girl with even more stars in her eyes than Evie has; and Jericho Jones, Uncle Will’s quiet assistant who’s concealing a big secret of his own. These are only a few of the characters we meet, and the way in which Bray gives each one of them a distinct narrative voice is very impressive. My only quibble with the multiple story lines is that they do take a while to converge, and even by the end of the book, not all of them do. I suspect that there’ll be plenty of time for that in future books, especially if they equal the page count of The Diviners.

This is one of the scariest books I’ve ever read. I’m already faint of heart when it comes to the horror stuff, and the murders in The Diviners are described in rather gruesome detail. The motivation behind them is also frightening in its own way. After the shock of the first killing, I read with a constant sense of unease because I never knew when the ominous whistling that signaled the approach of Naughty John was going to start. One minute, everybody is happy and dancing it up at the Hotsy Totsy club (coolest name ever!). The next, some poor, lone soul is being stalked, unaware of what’s about to happen. Then the whistling begins. I never knew that whistling could be so terrifying!

Holding my interest for nearly 600 pages isn't easy, but The Diviners did exactly that. I loved reading about life in 1920’s New York City and was thrilled to see the Brooklyn neighborhood that I grew up in mentioned specifically. Toss in an inventive twist on the paranormal, and this is a knockout read that is most definitely worth the time investment.

All in All:

The Diviners is so different from the other paranormal books that I’ve read, and in a good way. I never imagined the Roaring Twenties and the supernatural mixing together in such perfect harmony, but that just goes to show you how limited my imagination is. Libba Bray’s creativity is nothing short of brilliant here, and I cannot wait to read the next book in this series.

Know Me Better (8)

Know Me Better is a weekly meme hosted by I Am a Reader, Not a Writer.

Things you’d rather be doing right this moment
Ally: Reading, writing, practicing my flute.
Lee: Reading, sleeping (really missing that lost hour due to setting the clock ahead).

Time wasters
Ally: Television commercials, waiting on lines.
Lee: All social networking media.

Books they should make into movies
Ally: The Raven Boys, Throne of Glass, Leviathan.
Lee: The Infernal Devices, Unspoken, Unearthly.

Things you wish you knew before . . . . (fill in the blank)
Ally: Before this year, I wish I'd known it's inevitable that some of your friends and you will grow apart. Also, when you're in a leadership position, you can't make everyone happy. Finally, college is expensive.
Lee: Before I turned 30, I wish I'd known that a lot of life changes were ahead of me, and that there wasn't much I could have done differently to avoid some of them. Some things are just meant to happen a certain way.

Games you like to play
Ally: Pokemon, Kingdom Hearts, Spyro.
Lee: Scrabble, Tetris, Rock Band, the Lego Harry Potter video game, and, occasionally, Call of Duty (I get to take out my frustration on some CPU characters).

Stacking the Shelves (30)

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews. It's an opportunity for everyone to share the new books that we've acquired.

We went to the library last week and managed to stay within our 2-book borrowing limit, despite there being a ton of lovely new books on the shelves. Again. Going there is always an adventure because we know that we're bound to see at least one book that we've been dying to read sitting on the new arrivals shelf.

Ally's Books:

Borrowed:

The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff
Mind Games by Kiersten White

Lee's Books:

Borrowed:

The Lost Prince by Julie Kagawa

Bought:

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

What did you add to your shelves this week? Please link us up!

Review: Legacy of a Dreamer by Allie Jean

Legacy of a Dreamer
By Allie Jean
Publisher: The Writer’s Coffee Shop

* I received a copy through Goodreads First Reads.

To Sum It Up:

Chantal Breelan is an orphan who can barely remember her past, let alone why she was separated from her parents. All Chantal knows is that she has been plagued with horrific nightmares her entire life. Her only comfort is her imaginary shadow-friend, Nick. When Chantal turns eighteen, she is forced out into the city all on her own. Her new life will reveal the secrets of her past and the future. Her dreams mean so much more than she could have ever imagined, and Nick has become more important to her than ever before.

Review:

This book would have easily been finished in a matter of hours if I had the time. It upsets me that I couldn't just sit down and give this book the attention it deserved. Who needs homework, or passing grades, for that matter?! DAMN YOU, AP CLASSES!!!

This book was wonderfully original; it just pulled me in from the beginning. My big thing about books is uniqueness. Those are naturally the types of books I go for, and those books usually end up being dark and creepy. This book had just the right amount of horror, not too much, but enough to keep you interested. Legacy of a Dreamer had everything—action, horror, awesome characters, and just a hint of romance.

Chantal was a fantastic heroine. She was witty, stubborn, kind, and a total badass. Although everyone kept going on about how important she was, Chantal put everyone's safety above her own, but not in that annoying, “I'm a Martyr, Kill Me Now!” kind of way. Chantal wasn't selfish or annoying or stupid. Oh, and she gets bonus points for being an enemy butt-kicker! Nick was amazing, too! Swoon-worthy, for sure! I really hope I get to learn more about Nick in the next book! He was so sweet, but he didn't steal any of Chantal's spotlight. The two characters complement each other in a way that makes the book soooooo much better.

The book was paced beautifully. It was a complete page turner, but the reader had plenty of time to let everything sink in. How I wish this book was another hundred pages longer! It wasn't incomplete or anything, I simply wanted more! When does the next book come out?!

All in All:

This was a wonderful book! It was so different and so much more than I thought it would be. I can't wait to read more!

Review: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles #1)
By Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

To Sum It Up:

Ethan Wate has been having strange dreams lately, but he doesn’t suspect how real they’re about to become with the arrival of Lena Duchannes to the small town of Gatlin, South Carolina. Lena comes from a family of powerful magic users, a family that also carries a dark curse with it. Despite how quickly Lena becomes the target of gossip among the Gatlin locals, both for her appearance and her family connections, Ethan finds himself intrigued by her. As Ethan and Lena are about to discover together, Gatlin is a town steeped in magic and secrets, and their two families have been forever linked by both.

Review:

Whenever I set my eyes on books that are of considerable girth like Beautiful Creatures is, the question that springs to my mind is, are all those pages justified? If I’m about to invest my time in a nearly 600 page tome, I expect to be entertained from start to finish. The verdict on Beautiful Creatures? It was worth a read, but there were quite a few lulls that made me wish the book were shorter by several chapters.

I liked the book’s take on magic. Its users are called Casters here, and Lena is one of them. On her sixteenth birthday, she’ll either be Claimed for the Light or for the Dark. Thanks to a curse placed on her family during the Civil War, Lena fears that she’ll be Claimed for the Dark. Lena got on my nerves quite often. I mean, I did feel sorry for her because all she wanted was to be able to attend school and be a normal teenager, but the citizens of Gatlin were determined to make life hell for her. I did, however, think that she spent way too much time brooding over her impending birthday. She could have made better use of her time trying to find a way to avoid turning Dark. Instead, Lena mopes a lot while Ethan does all of the work, poring over books from the Caster Library (which sounds like an amazing place) in search of a solution.

Ethan, our narrator, was an all-around good guy, though perhaps a tad too perfect a hero for my tastes. I prefer protagonists who show some flaws, and Ethan is more of the knight in shining armor type. Really, his only flaw is allowing Miss Mopey to carry on with her pity party instead of telling her to snap out of it and lend a hand in saving herself. I’m sorry, but Lena’s attitude seriously annoyed me.

I found some of the secondary characters better drawn than the main ones. Ethan’s great aunts, collectively called the Sisters, were a riot. I also liked Amma, the Wate family’s housekeeper, who’s pretty much become a parent to Ethan since his mother died and his grief-stricken father sank into a deep depression. But my favorite character in the novel by far was Lena’s uncle, Macon Ravenwood. He’s just incredibly cool and mysterious and has this presence that commands your attention. Nobody crashes a school board meeting like Uncle Macon does.

The novel has a wonderfully eerie vibe to it. You know that something sinister is lurking under the idyllic portrait of small town life that Gatlin goes to painstaking lengths to display. The book’s tone reeled me in from the start, but the same emphasis on how a small town can hide big secrets also hindered the book. It’s very firmly established in the beginning of the novel that Gatlin is the kind of place where everyone knows each other’s business and outsiders aren’t exactly welcome. Small town with small-minded citizens—got it. No need to reinforce this idea over and over and over again. This repetition, combined with the seemingly interminable countdown to Lena’s birthday and the book’s length, caused me to lose some of my interest in the story about halfway through the novel.

I feel like I’ve been rather critical here, and Beautiful Creatures really isn’t a bad read at all. It definitely has its moments and some intriguing characters. The catch is, though, you have to wade through pages and pages to reach the next interesting bit. That was my experience, at least. Every time I gathered some reading momentum, I’d hit a slow stretch in the story, which I think could have benefitted from some reining in.

All in All:

Although I wouldn’t call Beautiful Creatures a page turner, it didn’t bore me to the point where I wanted to abandon reading it, either. I’m not always the most patient reader, and I do believe you need to be reasonably patient with this book, so that was probably a contributing factor in my overall enjoyment of the novel.

• Ally's Review of Beautiful Creatures