The Diviners

By: Libba Bray

Narrated by: January LaVoy

Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Nominee, Best Teens Category, 2013

Something dark and evil has awakened....

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-tute-ly ecstatic. It's 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult.

Evie worries her uncle will discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.

As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho is hiding a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened....

This audiobook includes an introduction read by Libba Bray.

©2012 Libba Bray (P)2012 Listening Library

I loved this story.

I'm fascinated with the time period and the author's historical accuracy. I can't wait to start the next book in the series. I love stories about divination.

was great but they sacrificed a cat

love it but I also love cats for that I couldnt give 5 stars! cat life

Unique

This book made me feel like I was in the 1920s , the narration is great and the accent was spot on.

I want more!!

my new favorite author and narrator. This book just took me back to a place in time I'd never get to experience otherwise. at times it was scary real and the characters are so descriptive it's really impressive. Thank you to the fabulous author and narrator who brought this book to life :-)

Good, maybe not great? You decide

This one took a few chapters to really catch me but did eventually. The performance was top notch though! Thoroughly enjoyed January LaVoy's narration! I didn't realize it was part of a series and usually get the next book immediately once I've finished the first/previous. However, I think I'm going to keep this series on my "if I run out of books" collection. Don't get me wrong, it's good! I just don't have a burning desire to follow the characters just yet. Will I read the rest? yes, eventually.

Not a bad start, but could have been better

I'm not familiar with Libba Bray's other work. We'll get that out of the way right up front. Seems a lot of other reviewers here went in with an idea based on that, I didn't.

I also have a major disagreement with one thing regarding this book: this isn't a YA title. They call it that. It won some award for being a "teen" book. It just isn't. Many reviewers based their reviews off that notion, and I can see why they had issues there. It's just plain wrong. Regardless of Bray's attempts to skew it that way, if any, or the publisher's desires to play to that market, this isn't a teen or YA book.

This is an adult horror novel that happens to feature young people. That doesn't make it a YA or teen book.

The best comparison I can make to those reading this review? Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That was not a "teen" show. It was an adult show chock full of adult content and themes that just happened to feature young people. It, like this, had gore, violence, language, and themes that just weren't suited for teen audiences. Twilight, this isn't.

Sure, the "coming of age" themes might appeal to the young, but the age the characters are coming of is adulthood, not adolescence. As such, they're dealing with mortality, capitalism, crime, morality of the deeper kind that threatens the soul, institutional racism of the historical kind, philosophical issues of the permanence of the soul, and stuff that just straight up isn't grist for the average sophomore's mind. Whether or not to be on Team Jacob or Team Whatshisface, whether Peeta is going to survive the next Game, that's the stuff of popular YA. This gets into Nietzsche, brutal sexual assaults, and young women getting their skin ripped off.

That being said, it's not a bad little horror novel set in a time we just don't get a lot of horror set in. You've got an interesting killer with a deep mythos and a fun little chase pursuing him.

The issues arise in what's going on around it. The best way to describe that is indeed Buffy, because this is an origin story launching a new series, and this book spends a vast amount of time on those origins of our Buffy and our large team of "Scoobs" who we assume will eventually become the titular Diviners.

The problem? That doesn't happen here despite the lengthy novel. We meet them all. We get some of their origins, and only hints of others. But while all play some role in the pursuit of this killer, others just barely graze it, and absolutely do not join the team. They're practically Sir Not Appearing In This Film, which leaves you at the end wondering why you spent so much page time following them around and learning about them. Sure, this is Book 1. But it's still a book. It needs to do its business and tell its story. This isn't a comic book, it's not issue 1, we aren't reading a serial. Why, then, do we spend so very much time with Theda and Memphis who do almost literally nothing to add to the tale? Ominous things are suggested, powers hinted, that they might become powerful members of this Scooby team. But they don't here. Yet they take up a simply massive amount of the book. It's very hard not to feel like the reader's time has been wasted while the author builds a world that only exists in her head. If it's not in these pages, it doesn't do us a lick of good.

If it didn't make up a solid 1/3 of the book, it wouldn't be a complaint, but I'm not exaggerating. Remove all bits referencing things that simply don't happen here but refer to things that will happen in later entries in the series and you'd lighten the load by that much, easily. Maybe more. Tell us THIS story, Libba, don't tell us the next one. Tell us the next one in the next one, or get into comic books, which would be an incredible format for this series. Or television.

One comment on other reviewers complaining about our lead character. Yes, she's flawed. Apologies that she's not an immediate, whip-smart, perfect angel of a detective leaping into action, saving the day, defeating every challenge. This is to say she's a flawed human. An actual 17-year-old girl. She was written with depth. I'd advise these reviewers read more fiction not intended for people under 20 to run into more characters like Evie. They might be frustrated at first, but they might also learn to enjoy real fiction rather than tripe.

Finally, a word on the narrator, who is simply one of the finest I've ever heard. She's made of pure gold. Teenage girl? Of course. Elderly African-American male? Got it. Elderly lady? Several different elderly ladies? All performed differently so they're easy to tell apart. Singing? Voice of an angel. Singing badly? Done, and harder than you think to do well. Any challenge thrown at this woman, and she just rushes through it like a gazelle, never breaking pace. Astounding. An entire cast of hundreds in one person. She has no equal.

I can only recommend this title if you want to read the series. It's absolutely Issue 1 of a new comic. The Pilot Episode of a new show. If you enjoy shows like Buffy, you'll dig it. We've got our Buffy, our Giles, and the rest of the Scoobs are coming along...eventually...all with their own special little gifts. Not enough to be derivative of everyone's favorite slayer, but the blueprints are there: soulful but maybe less than human hunk, bookish and (for now) unpowered best friend, rakish competitor for her affections with a bad history, and a whole set of others that can step in and out, along with a group of adults who may be watching out for them or may not have their best interests while some Big Bad is coming for them all and the world with them. With four books already laid down, there are monsters to put down and mysteries to solve.

All categorized, likely incorrectly, as YA.

Did not expect it to scare me so much!

I listened to this while cleaning houses and I had to switch to music because it was kind of terrifying to listen to alone in a dim basement. Great narrator and loved all the different protagonist's perspectives. Libby Bray seems to love to write at least one bratty character and I think that's awesome! Some people hate that, but it's pretty realistic. Evie acts like an actual rich 17 year old with trauma and a secret. I think good research was done! For the time period, the details, for the characters, and for the scary parts.

It was a bit long and drawn out, but it was still an exciting listen and I'd be curious about the sequel. Just not in a dark basement alone.

Libba has donehas done It again!

I couldn’t get enough of this creepy tale. I can’t wait to listen the rest of the books in the series. And can we talk about January LaVoy? After listening to the story, I don’t think I would even want to read book. January’s mastery of character voices is completely unmatched. She is a vocal genius! I firmly believe that no other narrator could’ve come close to making the story as amazing as January made it. January’s narration had me hanging on her every word with bated breath. I don’t know if there’s ever been or ever will be a better combination than Libba’s stories, and January‘s narrations. I’m crossing my fingers that January narrates the following stories in the series. BRAVO!!!!

Best audiobook ever?

I cannot believe that I went so long without reading this book, because it is literally right up my alley. I got so much more than I thought I would going into this book and I LOVED it.

As far as audiobooks go, this is by far my favorite, January LaVoy is so. freaking. amazing. If I ever reccomend an audiobook to anyone, it would be The Diviners.

First thing I need to start off with the books content is how much I liked the time period and how well Libba Bray executed it. She OBVIOUSLY did her research, which is always nice, but then she was able to take that research and make you feel like you were actually in that time period. There have been other historical fiction novels that I have read, that while it is set in a different time period, the characters feel like they come right out of the 21st century. The descriptions of the places and the slang that was used in The Diviners actually made me feel like I was actually in the 1920's.

The other thing I loved was the paranormal aspect. Whenever I heard someone talk about this book all I got from most of the reviews what that it was a spooky/scary book, I didn't really hear most people talk about the paranormal part of this book, and so finding out that teenagers with paranormal powers was a part of this book made me pleasantly surprised. While I loved this part, it was also what left me a little disappointed with this book. *spoiler* I had this impression during the first half of the book that Eevie, Sam, Theta, Memphis, and Isaiah would band together as 'The Diviners' to fight Naughty John and future villains, but they didn't, and for the *most* part, they don't even know about each other. I really hope in Lair of Dreams I get more of the Scooby Doo gang vibe with them all coming together to solve mysteries/fight evil. *spoiler*

The only other thing that I really did not like (other than the previously stated slightly spoilery part above) was the sort of(?) love triangle. It wasn't a huge, but I have a feeling that it is going to be bigger in the next book and that just kind of annoys me. Honesty, I don't think it was executed badly, I just am so over them at this point that even the hints of them annoy me now. This is obviously a personal thing, and I wouldn't actually use this as something against this book, I just have read way too many of them and feel the need to point them out.

I am sure I have more things I could talk about, but I need to start Lair of Dreams, so this will have to do.


Audible 20 Review Sweepstakes Entry

I’m hooked!

So I listened to this book at the request of a friend because she thought I would like it. At first, I hated it and really couldn’t get into it but that was because of the main character being so whiny and bratty (its good to know I wasn’t the only one who thought that). I decided to push through and finish (because my friend insisted it got better as new the author added new characters). I’m glad she made me keep going because once it picked up I couldn’t stop! The author does a fantastic job of setting everything up and then it’s nonstop excitement!

January LaVoy does a phenomenal job voicing each and every character! I am glad to see that she does the other two books as well!

I am honestly hooked and the only reason I haven’t started the next book is because I am writing this review! I highly recommend this!