Book Review: The Diviners

The Diviners by Libba Bray

How COOL is this? A trailer for a book! 

I die. I love movie trailers, as in I watch them like most people watch full episodes of sitcoms on Netflix. Join my addiction at Rotten Tomatoes.
Why watch a whole movie when

 someone has already put the best parts in a 4 minute montage??

As you can probs tell, this book is a super natural mystery. Normally, it's not my go to genre but with Halloweenie coming up, I thought it would be a fun mix up. I also listened to this on audiobook which I am glad I did because the voices really added to the creepiness of the book.

The synopsis is this: It's the 1920s and 16 year old Evie O'Neill is busy causing trouble with her spicy attitude and constant addiction to stirring up trouble and getting attention. She's a super cute character who spouts of the funniest 20s-ish sayings through out the book, like "everything's jake, that's just the berries! and I'm posi-TUTE-ly certain!" I want to bring those diddies back, so watch out! 

Evie has a gift that she keeps to herself. She can read objects. As in, she holds a personal object of someone's in her hand and she can see that person's secrets in her mind. It plays out like a movie in her head. Which is how she ends up in big trouble with her parents and they ship her off to New York City to live with her Uncle. Someone needed to tell her 'rents that shipping your 16 year old off to the Big Apple during the prohibition is hardly a punishment. 

Here's some addition background from GoodReads: 

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.

Evie, her pals Mabel and Theta, plus her uncle and his warden Jericho and a pick pocket named Sam Lloyd are some of the most entertaining, well-developed characters I have read about in a long time. Each one is so unique, it's hard to believe one person (Bray) created all of them. 

All of the characters play an important role in catching this killer that is terrorizing NYC.  It turns out that Evie isn't alone in her powers...

The murder scenes are gruesome and actually pretty terrifying. I couldn't get them out of my head. But then the next minute, Evie is saying something like "that's posi-tutely the jimmies!" and you loosen up soon after.

The killer is a very cool character and there are a lot of elements like spirits, super natural powers and creepiness that does keep you on the edge of your seat.

Read it, if you like this type of make believe, thrillers, the 20s and aren't afraid of a little blood. 

The only downside is that after the plot has climaxed, it's kinda of boring even though the books goes on for a couple chapters after the most exciting part happens. I think Bray should've ended the book on a higher, most exciting note. But there's definitely another book coming, I can tell because of the way it ends, plus the website calls it a series. (I'm a real detective, see?) 

Happy Friday, Fraaannndss! 

Today, I am linking up, check it out!