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kaylinwriter14 's review for:
The Diviners
by Libba Bray
3 Stars:
Overall:
Finished it!
I never take this long with books, but for some reason I just dragged through this. I really loved several aspects of this, but I don’t think enough to make up for just how slow this moved.
Pros:
The characters! I loved all of them! (well... mostly.) There were all very real and interesting, while still varied. I love books that call pull off a diverse cast of characters without it becoming character soup. Most of the characters seemed to develop and change by the end, which was great to watch.
I especially loved Evie. I adore fun and confident female characters who aren’t utterly horrible. She was definitely impulsive and a little vain, but she was still likeable and showed growth by the end.
Yay for LGTB characters and POC characters whose entire stories aren’t defined by those traits! Bonus points for taking place in a historical.
I really did enjoy this writing style. I’ve never read a Libba Bray book before, and I definitely will be reading more. She has a knack for descriptions and setting scenes, especially.
Give me more books set in the 1920s please! I love historical fiction, and this is an era I don’t read a lot about. Especially in YA fiction.
Evie’s power was very interesting, and not something I feel I’ve seen before.
Cons:
This took me SO long to read. As much as I loved Libba Bray’s descriptions and these characters, I don’t feel I needed some long description every time they walked into a new room. And I don’t think I needed every bit of every character’s backstory. They were interesting, but it was just simply too much.
I think this plot could have been tightened up quite a bite as well. The climax occurs without a large amount of buildup in comparison to previous scenes which seemed to have more buildup for no reason. And there was quite a lot of set up for the sequel after the climax. Like. A lot. There were too many pieces trying to work at once, and they really needed to be condensed.
I quite liked Sam, but he was not as expanded upon or developed as the others. I wish some of the pages spent on Jericho had gone to Sam, tbh.
Also, where was Mabel the entire second half? She just fell off the face of the earth. And jeez. Why can’t her friends just let her wear her hair the way she wants too?
I still don’t understand Blind Bob. Or Isaiah.
In conclusion:
Great characters. Great setting. Strong writing. Quite a few issues with plot and pacing.
Overall:
Finished it!
I never take this long with books, but for some reason I just dragged through this. I really loved several aspects of this, but I don’t think enough to make up for just how slow this moved.
Pros:
The characters! I loved all of them! (well... mostly.) There were all very real and interesting, while still varied. I love books that call pull off a diverse cast of characters without it becoming character soup. Most of the characters seemed to develop and change by the end, which was great to watch.
I especially loved Evie. I adore fun and confident female characters who aren’t utterly horrible. She was definitely impulsive and a little vain, but she was still likeable and showed growth by the end.
Yay for LGTB characters and POC characters whose entire stories aren’t defined by those traits! Bonus points for taking place in a historical.
I really did enjoy this writing style. I’ve never read a Libba Bray book before, and I definitely will be reading more. She has a knack for descriptions and setting scenes, especially.
Give me more books set in the 1920s please! I love historical fiction, and this is an era I don’t read a lot about. Especially in YA fiction.
Evie’s power was very interesting, and not something I feel I’ve seen before.
Cons:
This took me SO long to read. As much as I loved Libba Bray’s descriptions and these characters, I don’t feel I needed some long description every time they walked into a new room. And I don’t think I needed every bit of every character’s backstory. They were interesting, but it was just simply too much.
I think this plot could have been tightened up quite a bite as well. The climax occurs without a large amount of buildup in comparison to previous scenes which seemed to have more buildup for no reason. And there was quite a lot of set up for the sequel after the climax. Like. A lot. There were too many pieces trying to work at once, and they really needed to be condensed.
I quite liked Sam, but he was not as expanded upon or developed as the others. I wish some of the pages spent on Jericho had gone to Sam, tbh.
Also, where was Mabel the entire second half? She just fell off the face of the earth. And jeez. Why can’t her friends just let her wear her hair the way she wants too?
Spoiler
I don’t like Jericho very much. And I certainly didn’t like him with Evie. He seemed very boring and never got much more interesting to me. I never saw evidence of Evie having any feelings for him, and before they are kissing there was only one seen where she even thought he was attractive.Spoiler
I don’t like the science element to Jericho’s backstory. Not only does it not make sense to me, it just really didn’t fit the overall tone of this story. So much of the setting was devoted to the paranormal and this random Frankenstein plot was just odd to me.I still don’t understand Blind Bob. Or Isaiah.
In conclusion:
Great characters. Great setting. Strong writing. Quite a few issues with plot and pacing.