Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of The Diviners by Libba Bray

The Diviners by Libba Bray

The Diviners

by Libba Bray

  • Critics' Consensus (6):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Sep 2012, 608 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

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-toot-ly thrilled. 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.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Bray empties a wealth of topics into her complicated narrative - labor reform, a steampunkish robotics experiment, flapper culture, religious zealotry - but her trademark humor is less apparent." - Publishers Weekly

"Starred Review. Not for the faint of heart due to both subject and length, but the intricate plot and magnificently imagined details of character, dialogue and setting take hold and don't let go. Not to be missed." - Kirkus Reviews

"Starred Review. Grades 9-12 Here’s your headline, boss: “Small-Town Dame Lands in Big Apple, Goes Wild, Tries to Stop Resurrection of Antichrist.” It’ll sell bundles! Indeed it will, as Bray continues her winning streak with this heedlessly sprawling series starter set in Prohibition-era New York." - Booklist

This information about The Diviners was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Sharon Livingston

What a creative writer!
There are several aspects that make the Diviners an exciting read; the characters are well drawn and intriguing, the time period is brought to life with all of your senses so that you can walk the streets of NYC in the 20's, and the magic of the diviners is believable. And wait til you read the sequel, Lair of Dreams. Such fun.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Libba Bray Author Biography

Libba Bray is an author of young adult novels, including A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, The Sweet Far Thing and Going Bovine.

Her first novel, A Great and Terrible Beauty, was a New York Times bestseller. In November 2006, a video promoting the book was a part of The Book Standard's Teen Book Video Awards.

Libba Bray lives in New York City with her husband and son.

Author Interview
Link to Libba Bray's Website

Name Pronunciation
Libba Bray: First syllable rhymes with rib. Libba is a nickname for Elizabeth. Her full name is Martha Elizabeth Bray

Other books by Libba Bray at BookBrowse
  • Rebel Angels jacket

5 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more YA fantasy, sci-fi, speculative, alt. history...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.