The Diviners by Libba Bray

The Diviners by Libba Bray
The Diviners #1
Release Date: September 18, 2012
Publisher: Atom
Source: Gift
Star Rating: ★★★
Rating: Enjoyable

It's 1920s New York City. It's flappers and Follies, jazz and gin. It's after the war but before the depression. And for certain group of bright young things it's the opportunity to party like never before.

For Evie O'Neill, it's escape. She's never fit in in small town Ohio and when she causes yet another scandal, she's shipped off to stay with an uncle in the big city. But far from being exile, this is exactly what she's always wanted: the chance to show how thoroughly modern and incredibly daring she can be.

But New York City isn't about just jazz babies and follies girls. It has a darker side. Young women are being murdered across the city. And these aren't crimes of passion. They're gruesome. They're planned. They bear a strange resemblance to an obscure group of tarot cards. And the New York City police can't solve them alone.

Evie wasn't just escaping the stifling life of Ohio, she was running from the knowledge of what she could do. She has a secret. A mysterious power that could help catch the killer - if he doesn't catch her first.

In a town house at a fashionable address on Manhattan's Upper East Side, every lamp blazes.

---

I was very hesitant to read anything by Libba Bray after the shitfest that was Beauty Queens, which is one of the worst books I have ever read. I wasn't a fan of the weird satire, or the overwhelming amount of annoying characters. But while The Diviners had some trace of the same writing style, which is expected since it's by the same author, I ended up really enjoying it, and now I really want to read the Gemma Doyle series as well.

The Diviners by Libba Bray

The Diviners by Libba Bray
The Diviners #1
Release Date: September 18, 2012 (UK)
Publisher: Atom
Source: Bought
Rating: 5/5

It's 1920s New York City. It's flappers and Follies, jazz and gin. It's after the war but before the depression. And for certain group of bright young things it's the opportunity to party like never before.

For Evie O'Neill, it's escape. She's never fit in in small town Ohio and when she causes yet another scandal, she's shipped off to stay with an uncle in the big city. But far from being exile, this is exactly what she's always wanted: the chance to show how thoroughly modern and incredibly daring she can be.

But New York City isn't about just jazz babies and follies girls. It has a darker side. Young women are being murdered across the city. And these aren't crimes of passion. They're gruesome. They're planned. They bear a strange resemblance to an obscure group of tarot cards. And the New York City police can't solve them alone.

Evie wasn't just escaping the stifling life of Ohio, she was running from the knowledge of what she could do. She has a secret. A mysterious power that could help catch the killer - if he doesn't catch her first. - Goodreads

Hey, so you know I occasionally have this problem where I read a book and then fall so deeply in love with it that I attempt to convince everyone to read it because it's just that good? Well, this doesn't happen very often (pretty sure the last novel I obsessively tried to get everyone to read was Code Name Verity) but, and I just cannot emphasise this enough, The Diviners, by Libba Bray, is just fantastic. I don't know how to put into words how much I was overwhelmed by the sheer brilliance of this novel but I'm going to try since I need all of you to read it and then join me in the frankly torturous wait for the sequel (April 2014 according to Goodreads). The synopsis of the book actually does a pretty good job of laying out the bare bones of the storyline so I won't touch on it very much because ~spoilers~

Homecoming + Giveaway! - Closed.

Yes, I am back! I had the most fantastic time in Crete; I didn’t want to return to England. Alas, if I had chained myself to the balcony of my hotel room I would have probably been arrested and thrown in a Greek jail. So, I reluctantly packed my bags, hopped on the plane and came back to cloudy Buckinghamshire.

How are you all? Has there been any pressing news since I left? I hope there wasn’t too much drama!

To celebrate my... Okay, I was going to say “To celebrate my return” but I don’t feel like celebrating that. To celebrate my beautiful holiday, I am giving away a hardback copy of Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. All you have to do is fill in the form and follow the rules below.

Rules & Information:

-          Entrants must be 13 years of age or older

-          Deadline to enter is August 16, 2011

-          International!

-          One entry per person. Any duplicate entries will be deleted.

Book Review: Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Release Date: May 24, 2011

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Rating: 2 out of 5

Recommended? Nope.

From bestselling, Printz Award-winning author Libba Bray, the story of a plane of beauty pageant contestants that crashes on a desert island. 

Teen beauty queens. A "Lost"-like island. Mysteries and dangers. No access to email. And the spirit of fierce, feral competition that lives underground in girls, a savage brutality that can only be revealed by a journey into the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. Oh, the horror, the horror! Only funnier. With evening gowns. And a body count. - Goodreads Page

The plot kicks off with the plane crashing on the island, and throughout the first half of the book, we see the girls struggle to live on the island, learning to fish and to build huts. However, we didn't actually see a lot of this; all of a sudden the huts were there. I would have loved to have seen the girls do this, as I mainly picked up this book for the island survival part of it – which is a huge interest of mine.

Beauty Queens is very character-driven. I wouldn’t recommend picking this book up for the action, as there wasn’t much of that. A lot of time is spent telling the reader about each of the characters’ backstories, and about their different personalities and traits. That said, there is little character development going on. 

The pirates... don’t even get me started on the pirates. I didn’t feel they were necessary at all, and they only seemed to be thrown in so that the girls could get some male attention in an otherwise completely female setting. At the same time, it also contradicted the whole feminism theme of the plot.

I found this book to be very preachy without needing to be. Lots of different themes were thrown into the book, such as lesbianism, transgendered characters, feminism... And while that was all well and good, it became very in-your-face after a while. I felt that Bray was trying too hard to make this book appealing to everyone.

To be completely honest, I only really liked one of the girls – Petra. She was the most developed out of all of them, and she seemed the most true to life. All of the other characters seemed very shallow in comparison, and they only seemed to be there so that those different themes mentioned above - among others - were included.

This is the first book of Libba Bray’s I have read, and I have to say I’m not a fan of her writing style. I usually love satire, but Bray’s was a bit too much for me. I think she took it too far with the whole tongue-in-cheek thing.

I know this is not Bray’s fault, but the editing of this novel was very poor. I noticed a great deal of simple mistakes, such as the misuse of “too” and a character talking in a scene and then entering the same scene two pages later.

The numerous footnotes that appeared every couple of pages were also very annoying, as they distracted from the flow of the book. Towards the end, I just ended up ignoring them completely.

I don’t recommend this novel unless you are a fan of Bray’s other books. I can’t say how Beauty Queens fares in comparison to those, however, as I haven’t read them. Honestly, the plot and the dialogue were all over the place and this book really was a struggle to get through.