Book Series Review: The Diviner Series by Libba Bray

The Diviners series by Libba Bray is in my opinion one of the best YA fantasy series I have read in a while. To be honest, I never even heard of this series before until a few months ago where I watched a youtuber praise the series and then I looked it up on goodreads. I love stories about the supernatural but when you add the 1920’s and New York in it, it just peaks my interest even more. If you are into that stuff as well, then this is a series I highly suggest. I practically blew through the entire series in about a month and a half. I would definitely recommend this series to friends and even people I don’t know. I am just surprised this hasn’t been turned into an adaptation yet. 

The series is based off a group of main characters who each gets their equal amount of time throughout the books to get their stories told. Speaking from personal experience and from other writers’ I’ve read that attempt to do this usually doesn’t go as smooth as Libba Bray does it. My own writing style is very similar to Libba Bray’s in terms of having multiple main characters and maneuvering them so their stories and voices can be heard at the same level as the main character’s. I really admired her talent for that. She did an amazing job on building each character’s backstory and allowed each of them to grow, learn, and experience. I love how she weaves actual historic events into the story as well and showing us the social norms, conflicts, etiquettes, and issues during the 20’s. That pulled the entire series together so well with the characters’ backgrounds. Libba Bray’s writing style is definitely one of the best in YA. 

I loved the love triangle in the series between Sam, Evie, and Jericho. It reminded me a lot of the love triangle in the Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare between Will, Tessa, and Jem. The only thing that I felt was lacking from the love triangle was that I wished Jericho and Evie had a bit more physical interaction in the series. Yes, I ship Jericho and Evie. I don’t care what anyone else says! They deserved to be together. I felt like Bray was really pushing Sam and Evie’s towards one another. Yes, they went through a lot together throughout the whole series, but I didn’t feel that deep underlying connection between Sam and Evie as I did with Jericho and Evie. I would say Jericho and Evie had that more deeper connection where even if they were apart they thought of each other and longed for each other and their love was more calmer, gentle, lasting, and didn’t flipflop back and forth like Sam and Evie’s did. Sam and Evie were the couple that was more upfront and direct there was no hiding from anything and full of impulse and wild fire as Evie put it herself. On top of that, Jericho is way more loyal and Sam was portrayed as a playboy. All of this is especially obvious in the King of Crows and the way how Bray ended this love triangle killed my poor soul. 

My favorite character is hard. I would say it’s between Jericho and Memphis. Jericho because of how his personality is- I am exactly the same way. Someone of few words, always has their nose stuck in a book, loyal, and a deep thinker. Jericho’s backstory also broke my heart more than Evie or Sam’s ever would. I felt bad for him being played by Marlowe for so long that aggravated me beyond words. I love Memphis because of his backstory as well. His backstory made me cry so much because I lost several loved ones and I have also/still live in guilt for not being able to ease their pain or save them. It just kills me every time I read a section from Memphis’s point of view and he is being eaten up by guilt for not being able to save his mom. I love them both equally and Memphis is an aspiring poet wants to be published and I’m on the exact same boat haha. 

I love this series to the ends of worlds and back. It’s definitely well-written, strong storyline, amazing character building and development. This series will be on my mind for a long time, wondering on what happens next and if Jericho will ever come back…haha. I wish.  I have never felt so connected to characters in a book for a while and after I finished the series- I felt as if I was bidding goodbye to lifelong friends.