The Diviners (The Diviners, #1)

The Diviners
Libba Bray
578 pages
Released: September 18, 2012
Publisher: Little, Brown
Source: purchased
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Evie O'Neill's parents have had it with her drunken party tricks, so they've kicked her out and sent her to live with her uncle in New York.  Uncle Will is the owner of a museum the locals affectionately call "The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies."  When people around town start showing up dead thanks to an occult-based murderer, Evie is on the case along with the help of her special power, hoping to find the killer before he finds her.

So basically what we've got here is a young adult novel that takes place in the roaring twenties in New York City featuring a spunky young woman with powers.  This book had me at "hello."  Add to that a cast of other characters with a penchant for the supernatural and a supernatural serial killer on a mission.  Yes, sir!  The Diviners had me hooked from page one and even though it took me a week to get through the whole thing, I really enjoyed every minute and so did all the other gals at my book club.  This was our October pick!  And appropriately so because The Diviners is one creepy, creepy novel.

Let's talk about that creepy factor for a second.  Our first inkling that dark things are to come is when a girl pulls out the Ouija board during a party and she and her friends accidentally release something sinister.  That sinister being, in turn, starts a homicidal killing spree.  There may or may not be some flesh eating nastiness.  I don't want to give away all the fun!  I just want to mention that if "The Museum of Creepy Crawlies," which Evie's uncle owns, were a real place, I would love to visit it.  It was filled with all sorts of interesting and admittedly creepy artifacts.

The research Libba Bray did for this novel was fantastic.  I knew she did a lot, so when Evie started using a flashlight, I had to Google it and find out when flashlights were invented (the early 1900s).  I loved reading about New York City during the 1920s, the settings were so diverse.  Everything from Harlem to speakeasies and anything between was included and I thought they way Evie talked was "pos-i-tute-ly" adorable!  Evie was such a fantastic character.  She just wanted to find her place in the world and by the time to novel would up I felt like she was really on her way.

But Evie wasn't the only well-developed, likable character.  All of the characters in The Diviners are well-written and developed.  They all felt unique and had their own problems that were webbed together, which made the book very interesting to read.  Of course, there were also those darker, completely unlikeable characters who made the book even more interesting.  Loved it!

Four stars!  The Diviners is a brick, but a brick that reads very well.  I was really impressed with Libba Bray's world building and research.  If you have any love for the 1920s or creepy paranormal murders, this is a book you must check out!