Author: Libba Bray
Series: A Diviners Novel 02
Read Type: eARC
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Book Blurb
After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O'Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. With her uncanny ability to read people's secrets, she's become a media darling. It seems like everyone's in love New York City's latest It Girl - their 'Sweetheart Seer'.
But while Evie is enjoying the high life, her fellow Diviners Henry DuBois and Ling Chan will fight to keep their powers secret.
A malevolent force is at large, infecting people's dreams and claiming victims in their sleep. At the edges of it all lurks a man in a stovepipe hat who has plans of nightmare proportions . . .
As the sickness spreads, can the Diviners descend into the dreamworld to save the city?
Review
Strong language: Mild, some derogatory
Drugs: None
Violence: Some, semi-graphic
Sexual content: None
I received a copy of this novel from
NetGalley, via Little Brown publishers, in return for an honest review.
Please note, any quotes within are not from
the commercial copy of the novel and may be subject to change.
“Dream
with us, dream with us, us, us, the dream wants you wants you wants you to
dream to dream to dream with us.”
Deep underground in New York, 1927, many
men, often considered second-class citizens because of their racial heritage,
dig subway tunnels for the future. One group accidentally come across a caved
in subway station, long since abandoned. As they explore they find a music box
playing an ancient tune, lulling them all into peace… Until they find the
skeletal corpse! That night they dream of the music, of their wildest hopes and
dreams with only one condition: the dream wants them to stay. If they try to
fight it the Dreams turns into their worst nightmares. None of the men ever
wake again.
The sickness quickly spreads through
Chinatown, getting the name the Chinese Sleeping Sickness, despite it taking
all races and classes indiscriminately. The prejudice against the Chinese, and
Chinatown as a whole increases. Life becomes dangerous for all minorities as
people hold irrational fears and quarantines are put into place.
This is the second novel in the Diviners
series. I haven’t read the previous novel but I didn’t have much difficulty
adapting to the scenario. Diviners appear to be various forms of psychics, some
speak to the dead, read objects, can walk in dreams or even heal. This appears
to have become increasingly common since events of the previous novel.
One such diviner, Evie O’Neill has her own
radio show reading the memory of objects for her avid listeners. She has become
a celebrity, with crowds lining the streets, and rowdy parties every night in
her lifestyle. She’d obviously had a major part in the previous novel and had
moments when she showed stress and suffering due to this. I couldn’t however
connect to this character. She felt overly pretentious and very shallow at
times. I must have connected on some level though because I found myself
muttering her catchphrase Pos i tute ly a couple of times.
Initially the novel jumps between many
characters of different lifestyles, race and ages. This let me really see New
York, from the slums, to the working families, the minorities and the
majorities, as well as the rich and famous. It really grounded me in the world,
and I saw many different aspects and opinions of what the sleeping sickness was
and what to do about it. There were however many sections that didn’t cover
this at all, people carrying on with their day-to-day lives that at times left
the plot meandering. Every character had their own desires, means and subplot.
At the quarter mark I was concerned about the lack of plot progress and
direction, unsure of the main characters and what was being done. Nevertheless,
I was still interested, and with the increasing amount of Sickness victims the
characters began to know people who were affected.
The language was rich and vibrant, using
many terms from the time. I felt real and authentic, almost like that book was written
in the 20’s in places. I did feel this went too far in places though, making me
have to stop in the middle of an immersive scene to find out what something
meant. Maybe much of this was introduced slower in the first novel, but I felt
a poor job was done of integration into a young adult novel in this
installment. I’m all for using this language to give depth, but it can be done
while explaining what it means better than this showed.
I particularly liked the character Ling, a
young Chinese girl working in her family’s teashop while having dreams of
studying physics. She often had books surrounding her on these subjects,
causing teasing from her peers, unless she was taking requests to speak to the
dead for people. I felt she was a very strong character, far ahead of her time
in ambitions, not willing to let her race hold her back, and with a disability
I believe was polio, she showed a good demographic for a main character. I
particularly enjoyed her dream walks, seeing the difference in her when she
could take her splints off, discard the crutches and run freely. Once she met
Henry, another dream Walker who could share dreams with her, the Dreams quickly
became my favourite part of the novel. The backgrounds of the Dreams were often
insubstantial and couldn’t be touched, yet the dream itself was that much more
real for it. I think here the language was the most vibrant, and the characters
the most free. They often fell far closer to contemporary characters, less of a
barrier separating them from our time with sarcasm, humour and dry wit.
“Yes. Bloody clothing is often a clue that
something has gone awry,” Henry demurred.
Most of the characters were young, however
the demographic was very varied. You had black, white, Chinese, gay, straight,
rich, poor and disabled. While I applaud the author for giving the reader the
full variety of society who are often hidden in historical fiction, I did feel
some of these were put in for the sake of it without an actual plot reason. Not
having read the previous book though this could have been explained there.
As the plot progressed it became clear that
this was not a normal sickness. It was being caused by something far beyond the
realm of normal, far beyond what the government could deal with. It was time
for the diviners to step in once more. This was when the novel really stepped
up its game, many of the characters came together, their plotlines beginning to
merge, although they still held to their individualities and their own desires.
This caused the very human rift between the characters, it was far from the
trope of “something terrible happens and random people dropped their lives to
fix it”. They all had different ideas, priorities and moralities.
“C’mon, Freddy,” Sam goaded, still trying
to jimmy the lock. “Is your curiosity button on the fritz?”
“No. Neither is my code-of-ethics button.
Maybe you can ask Santa to bring you one of those for Christmas.”
I felt the language only grew stronger as
the story continued. As the plot thickened I was pleased to see that the author
employed methods such as newspaper articles, letters and switching points of
view to give news, rather than lengthy boring exposition. Both the dream world
and the waking world we used, building both emotion and tension as cracks
appeared in the perfect veneer the characters wanted to see of their lives. I
think during this stage too many aspects were added to the plot, with monsters
leaving the dream world to attack the waking especially, with no real effect
behind them, or solid conclusion. I think the plot could have been better split
into two separate novels at this point, it was by no means short of ideas, the
book just didn’t have enough space or time to deal with them all adequately. I
was particularly interested in the side plot that suggested the government had
a secret department using diviners. While this was looked into it was never
perfectly clear one way or the other. I hope the next novel continues this.
The finale was emotional and exciting, I
didn’t know who would survive. Characters had to split their differences and
ditch their ways of life to save all the ‘normal’ people in the rest of
America. It ended with a bang, but the last couple of chapters produced more
incomplete plot threads and questions that I’m sure will carry into the third
novel. I’d like to have seen this cleared up a bit more as some main areas were
left up in the air, but I guess I’ll just have to read book 3 to find out what
happens next.
The world is safe again, or is it? What
will the diviners do with their powers that seem to be increasing?
“Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me/Starlight
and dewdrops are waiting for thee.…”
The 411
this novel was incredibly atmospheric, and
a good description of what 1920s New York looked like. The characters were well
written, even the ones only had one scene felt fleshed out.
I felt the language, while very true to the
time and adding to the intensity of the environment, gave very few concessions
to the modern reader, especially as this book is aimed at young adults. On
several occasions it threw me and I had to stop to look it up. I feel this
could have been improved.
The story itself meandered through several
threads and many point of view characters. Most of the time this added in
richness, but occasionally it became distracting.
This novel had its flaws, but I loved the
style. I hope to get an opportunity to read more from this series in the
future.
I give this novel 4 stars.
