cat's corner

I'm not quite sure what to say about a novel that required more than a hundred pages of reading before I finally felt connected to the story and began caring about the featured players. Obviously Ms. Bray went above and beyond when it came to researching The Diviners - and went overboard making sure the reader knew, rather than letting the details blend seamlessly into the narrative. I would have preferred she delve deeper into her characters in the earlier chapters, rather than dazzling us with so many explicit detail of 1920s New York, Harlem, speakeasies, night clubs, hip lingo, clothes, etc. Any author requiring that much space to prove a main character (in this case, Evie) is more than one-note, usually isn't going to get as much effort from me as a reader. It was only Ms. Bray's reputation as a teen author of the highest calibre that kept me from throwing in the towel. Whether that's the curse of an author's success allowing them to get away with laziness or mistakes newbies/mid-listers can't, or if she truly intended for NYC and its boroughs to serve as a character in and of itself, I don't know. Either way, I feel something was poorly executed here. Once all that passed, the story and characters were compelling enough to make me curious about the follow ups. I just hope they get down to business much faster than their predecessor.