A review by czarina_misha
The Diviners by Libba Bray

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

Several 17 year-olds with special powers (healing, prophesy, dream walking, etc) meet and become friends in 1930s Manhattan. Their powers are the only thing to stop a supernatural serial killer. Some of their powers. Bray introduces a lot of characters and back stories and incidentals which I assume will be relevant to other books in this series. But she bored and frustrated me so much with all of these extras that I doubt I’ll read the rest. A really good editor should have helped her pare down to maintain flow. Example: In the last fourth of the book a character named Jericho finally shares his great secret, how he was part of an impossible medical experiment. (This is not a spoiler. His secret is obvious to readers tho not other characters.) The revelation is just a few pages. The rest of that rather long chapter Jericho talks about another patient who ultimately died. It’s not relevant to the plot and only a bit to Jericho’s character. Mostly it just added unnecessary words to a book that’s almost 500 pages. I just can’t recommend it. 
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