The Diviners

Bray, L. (COMING SEPTEMBER 2012). The Diviners. NY: Little, Brown & Company. (ARC)

YA Lit / paranormal / fantasy
Thank you, TLA Conference and Little, Brown & Company for this free Advance Reading Copy!

UPDATE!!!!  This is an absolutely amazing fan-made (DayIn3 on YouTube) book trailer, and it makes me want to read the book again. Was I too harsh?? Was I just in a mood?  Check this out:


 

When I started reading this, I was immediately bugged by the main character, Evie, but I stuck with it and I definitely got caught up in the story. The story is a mix of Ghostbusters (The Bennington, where everyone lives, is a conduit for the spirits) and Seven (ehh. . .not going to elaborate there) and The Stand (creepy man with the tall black hat) and I'm feeling slightly disturbed that I picked-up and read two books, back-to-back, without any prior knowledge, and they both included digging up the dead. (other book Rotters, which still weighs heavily on me.) 

I was disappointed in the ending -- way too many loose ends and very little closure -- and though the 20s lingo was fun (sorry, it was the bees knees), I would feel compelled to smother any teenager who spoke in nothing but street lingo. Evie didn't need to do that to be hip; it just made her slightly annoying.  Clearly this is designed to be part of a series, but it would have made a nice stand alone by removing a whole bunch of "new" information at the end and just reconciling some stories.

And the stories are many -- there are a ton of characters and many have "gifts" that indicate we haven't heard the last from them.  Not sure how the author can weave all of them in to the next book without it becoming jumbled. We'll just have to see how good she is!

This is a pretty fun video (posted by YouTube user MrRoccoA) that has the author acting out (with action figures) and singing some of the book.