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

Plodding plot with many unnecessary storylines

Well read and performed but wayyyyy too many secondary characters. Get only if already a
fan of Libba Bray.

BEST narration I have ever heard!

Libba Bray may just be my new favorite author!!! This book is a must read!!!

Read twice, I loved it so much

Everything was wonderfully put together. And I’m obsessed with this series. Buying the hard copies. Loved it.

An interesting, yet disappointing, ride.

On The Diviners:

(Summary below - Please heed trigger warnings listed after **.)

This books ranks only very mildly above average. The plot is unique, well-researched and the setting is carefully constructed, but it all falls short on the delivery, hashing all of its potential. Nothing happening within the book is even remotely scary, which is the intent, making the murder and satanic ritual scenes lack-luster in their effect. There's a fair bit of gore and adult themes, so be warned that the book is not for younger readers.

**Trigger warnings: Rape, domestic violence, alcoholism, child abuse/neglect/abandonment, death, war, detailed murder, mild racism (mentioned more for setting rather than as acts within the novel, though it is glossed over), religious fanaticism, religious persecution, branding, human and animal gore, and animal death. Many of these are described in purposeful detail, often as plot devices.

The characters are very, very slow to develop, and the main character, Evangeline (Evie) O'Neil, is one of the most blatant Mary-Sue's I've ever read in a published work. She's very self-centered, disloyal, gullible, attention-seeking and adrenaline-seeking. She harbours a clear alcohol problem, and the first dozen and a half chapters of the book make repeated mentions of how beautiful she is, turning heads and stopping people in their tracks in nearly every human interaction she has, verbal or not. Evie knows this and uses it to her advantage far too often to be enjoyable to read. I can understand "beautiful", but this was to the extreme. When we first meet Jericho and he is unphased by her looks, it was painfully clear right from that point who Evie's love interest would eventually become. This was also a huge disappointment; very predictable, thus not endearing in the least.

The colloquialisms of the era saturates the book, often making the dialogue sloppy (and very annoying, especially when Evie is speaking). It was used way to heavy-handedly. Easing up on Evie's use of the 20's slang may have redeemed her just slightly, in my opinion. I found it endearing at first, but it quickly became a grating point by chapter 50-some.

Evie is unrelated in nearly every way, despite Bray's attempts to make her feel genuine. She is created at the extreme end of all of her character traits, and every time we glimpse her internal emotional dialogue and grow some semblance of attachment to her, she saunters off and does something ridiculous that immediately ruins any possible development. When you find out she's only 17, she becomes the epitome of foreign. I work with teenagers and personally adore this age group, but Evie was frustrating to be with at every point of the book.

The plot is a great idea. What I'm about to say pains me, because I ordered this audiobook because I loved Bray's "Great and Terrible Beauty" series when I read it a number of years ago. I was really excited to read/hear this and get another dose of her wild and weird imagination. In this book, we get a real taste of that - Bray is brilliant at crafting unique and daring plots, thick with knots of the unexpected. In The Diviners, we get a huge helping of that talent. Bray clearly put a lot of deep thought and effort into the idea of the story, the setting, the mood, and the details of the supernatural. What ruined it was the delivery of that plot, on the wings of a sub-par main character and a cast of too often neglected secondaries. What Bray built was a genuinely brilliant idea; sadly, I wish it had been written by someone else.

In my completely unneeded opinion, if Evie had been in her late 20's as opposed to her late teens, I believe the story would have been improved greatly. An older character, with a less harsh personality that's softened by age and maturity (something Evie DESPERATELY needs), I truly believe the story would have had more solidity and depth. Deep characters, deep plot; these ideals follow suit. Sadly for The Diviners, Bray's shallow character breeds a disappointingly shallow plot.

By the end of the book, I found I was a mixture of mildly surprised, confused, frustrated and disappointed; many more negative emotions than positive ones. It was very clear that the abandoned house presented early on in the story would be the catalyst location for the climax, and it was frustrating to have the characters dance around this concept for over 100 chapters. By the end, every bit of research and detail Will, Sam, Evie and Jericho put into the background story of Naughty John became totally moot when Evie walked right into a trap readers could see coming from very, very early on, and used only one piece of randomly acquired knowledge to destroy him. She even tries to have a conversation with this devil-reincarnate as she's trying to destroy him! Jericho's presence at the climax was pointless, and nothing of the work anyone had done leading up to Solomon's Comet arriving had any effect on how Naughty John was defeated. In the end, it was all about Evie. Typical.

None of the characters had any real development, safe for some of them discovering each other's "powers", or each other. Theta and Henry have a sweet, squishy story that I would have loved to hear more about, especially when she meets Memphis, but all of their storylines end abruptly just before and just after the climax. Sam hardly developed at all, despite seeming to have the most complex backstory of all the characters and being the second main character we're introduced to when Evie arrives in Manhattan. He eventually gets demoted to secondary character when Jericho gets pushed into the picture. Mabel forgives Evie for being a horrible friend, which infuriated the hell out of me, since that would have been the best opportunity Evie was presented with to do some real personal development. But of course, Evie does something sweet, bats her eyelashes and Mabel swoons back into her arms. Will and Jericho have a great setting and storyline going when Evie suddenly arrives and disrupts the whole thing. Both of them seem to have complex stories that we don't get to see until the book is basically over, with only a glaze-over. On a similar note, Evie calls Will, "Unc" incessantly, even when she's whining, which becomes incredibly infuriating and annoying very, very quickly.

I finished the book and waited a few days for it to settle with me while I gathered by thoughts and feelings, deciding if I wanted to purchase Book 2 and continue the saga. Despite wanting to learn more about some of the characters, the book was forgettable after only a few days, and I found my interest waned significantly. The cliffhanger for Book 2 describes the new villain in very little detail about him specifically, hardly interesting at all, but uses very vivid detail to describe him disemboweling a wild rabbit that's far from frightening and is just distasteful; this is coming from someone who eats dinner while watching people get eaten in zombie shows. The whole chapter uses Bray's penchant for setting description while pulling vague lines from "Home, Home on the Range." I haven't decided yet if I enjoyed it or not. Either way, the old woman disemboweling her own housecat was distasteful enough to make me glad the book ended shortly afterwards.

Overall, the feeling left in my brain and the taste left in my mouth is forlorn disappointment. I truly do wish I could have liked this book - I really wanted to - but it just wasn't written well enough to be redeemable. I won't be reading the second installment.



TL;DR: The book is lack-luster, despite having a very interesting concept. The main character is annoying and unrelated in age, emotional maturity and personality. The whole story leads up to a climax that could have been reached without needing over one hundred chapters of apparently pointless research, and the secondary characters don't get the screen time they deserve. Despite liking Bray's previous works, and her extensive work in creating a vivid and interesting setting and plot for this book, the potential of that plot is ruined by a poorly developed main character. This book is not for everyone. I respect and can somewhat understand why some people like it, but I expect much more depth from my main characters (or any depth at all, really...). Definitely passable, even if you're a fan of Bray's work. Wouldn't recommend, Definitely not for young adults. Please heed trigger warnings listed above - they are plentiful and poignant.




On January LaVoy:

The narration, however, is superb, especially when one considered the vast cast of characters January LaVoy was required to represent. With nearly a dozen repeat characters, many of them male, LaVoy's voice is clear, precise, well-paced and distinct to each and every character. It becomes apparent very quickly whose PoV the chapter is in based on the voice she uses when narrating the opening lines. Within a very small span of time, the voices are believable and comfortable to hear.

The only exception to this is Naughty John, who is meant to have a booming and echoing voice in many of his scenes, as he's summoning his voice and physical being from a wicked, spiritual plane. This leaves LaVoy with the only option to speak loudly in her deepest baratone, which doesn't quite match up to the visuals, creating a weird effect. You can still very much appreciate the work and effort she puts into making Naughty John seem ominous and frightening, though. The book would have benefited from a little echoing added to those moments, to really hit the point.

My only critique of the narration: January LaVoy, despite having a very beautiful voice, doesn't have a voice that lends well to acapella singing, especially when she's singing directly into your ears. These moments would have benefited greatly from even just a small bit of music added to the near dozen moments when she's required to sing. I imagine she has a very beautiful singing voice; it's just a bit straining when heard so clearly and blatantly at close range without instrumental accompaniment. It's not bad by any means; not even close. Just... not musical enough on its own.

TL;DR: Great narration. January LaVoy does a superb job at creating distinct voices for each character, which is amazing, considering there are well over a dozen different repeat characters, many of them male. Her voice is clear and very enjoyable to listen to; an excellent narrator.

Good, not great.

The story is interesting, but it's hard to connect with some of the characters.

The narration is annoying at times.

Definitely worth the read.

It was surprisingly cute with the 20’s lingo and flapper flair. It kept me on my toes and interested with the ghost stories. A very enjoyable listen. Not for younger kids (younger than 12).

Enjoyable story, amazing narration

January LaVoy is such an amazing narrator! Her voices for each character were so distinct and believable, she really made me feel like I was in the 20's. I especially loved Theta's parts.

The Diviners itself is a pretty creepy, super intriguing tale. I loved the whole setting and I loved all the characters as well. However, some parts did get a little draggy, especially the ending.

book AND narration are impressive!

January LaVoy is a goddess! what an incredible performance! the book in itself is very compelling, but she adds such a life and personality to the multiple characters that is impossible to not be amazed.

highly recommend the book, and am looking forward to find others narrated by LaVoy!

Intriguing Series

I first read Libba's Gemma Doyle and that's how I discovered this book.
Honestly, I'm in love with it. I love the narrator, who brought life so well to the characters in the book. The story itself is long and intriguing.
I know that so many people hate Evie, but I also think it's because they can't empathize with her. She annoyed the ever-living daylights out of me through a lot, but 3 books in and she's still my favorite character.
This book (shown more so throughout the series) also has the diversity that a lot of people are looking for without it being rainbow sprinkles. The diversity is apart of each character's story AND their interactions. You have: LGBT representation, various ethnic backgrounds, including African-americans, Chinese, and Jewish, even those who are disabled. The book is well written and well performed. I adore it so very much.
There are struggles with things like PTSD, and alcoholism, and so many other issues. These characters are real, and have experienced real life things.
Each character is different, and well developed. Again, more and more being revealed the longer it goes on. They're flawed as characters should be. It's amazing.
I am in love with this series.

✨ 1920s magic! ✨

The beauty of the era and it's darkness are so beautifully illustrated through this magical story.

I loved every minute of it.