The Diviners

I can see people liking this as the first of a series rather than a stand-alone, and I can see why they would rate it higher because of that, but OOF. There is just no way I can rate this higher than a three. Overall, I'm not sure I'm committed enough to go on with the series.

The Pros:

—The setting is well-described and you feel like you're in NYC in the 1920's

—The research has clearly been done well and thoroughly, as well as the copywriting. It's cleanly written and you learn something along the way.

—There's an interesting and diverse cast of characters... too many of them, but still.

The Cons:

—It's too long at 600 pages... by like 300 pages. Generally I could forgive that if the pages are spent building an intricate plot and in-depth characters, but NOPE! Literally after the climax of the book and the resolution of the plot, there's still 1/8 of the book to read...

—Most of the book is a set up for the next book (“The storm is coming!”). There are chapters upon chapters dedicated to characters who have no bearing on this book's plot, like Memphis and Theta and Henry and Mabel and Sam...shall I go on? They all pass each other like ships in the night and you think, at last, they must meet each other, have some connection, and it will all make sense to the plot, but NOPE! Any connections are superficial at best and drag the book out, no matter how much you like the characters.

—That said, with so many characters and unrelated subplots, the characters end up being kind of shallow and superficial. And the resolution of the plot feels somehow unimportant. How could finding a crazy supernatural serial killer feel unimportant? Because it's clear that the author would rather be focusing on other things, like whatever is about to happen in the next book.

—Lastly, how on earth is this book marketed to young adults? It's scary. And there are SO MANY adult themes it's actually kind of ridiculous. Here are a few of them: frightening imagery, violence, rape, domestic abuse, abortion, assisted suicide, child abuse, bodily mutilation, animal abuse, underage (or at least illegal) drinking, smoking, police corruption, complex ideology (eugenics, communism, religion, cults, secret societies, the occult)... If it were a faithful film depiction, it would be rated R, not PG 13.