Publishing Date: September 18th, 2012
Genre: YA, Historical Fiction, Paranormal, Horror
Pages: 592 pgs
ISBN: 9780316126113
Source: ARC gifted from another blogger
Summary from Goodreads:
Evie O'Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City--and she is pos-i-toot-ly thrilled. New York is the city of speakeasies, shopping, and movie palaces! Soon enough, Evie is running with glamorous Ziegfield girls and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is Evie has to live with her Uncle Will, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult--also known as "The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies."
When a rash of occult-based murders comes to light, Evie and her uncle are right in the thick of the investigation. And through it all, Evie has a secret: a mysterious power that could help catch the killer--if he doesn't catch her first.
My Review:
Well, I'm not sure what to say about this one. I can appreciate Bray's writing and world building but for some reason I just couldn't get into this book. It wasn't for me unfortunately despite my best efforts to life this book. It took me a really long time to get invested in the storyline and once I did get a little sucked in it was after a few weeks of trying to read it. I'm glad that I didn't put this book down as I had originally planned to do because in the end it was a decent story. I think my issue was that I really wanted to know what was happening with Evie and when it jumps to other characters I just didn't care. I wanted to skim through those parts to get to the parts with Evie. Evie is just a spunky, fun girl and you can't help but love her even when she should be driving you bananas. I did like the creepy parts but as this is a YA book I found them to be a bit less horrific than I am used to. I like a good adult mystery/horror/thriller and I find that sometimes it is difficult to do this in a book marketed to teens. Again, I don't think my indifference to this book has anything to do with Libba Bray in general. I do think she writes well and she has good ideas, I think that perhaps her writing style is just not for me. As I'm writing this I realize that I have said this about her other 2 novels that I have read as well (Beauty Queens and Going Bovine). I have her Gemma Doyle series on my shelf and I'm hoping that this is the series that I can get really into.
I think that many will enjoy this book, as it is set in the 20s and NYC. It also features several murders and a paranormal element to the story. It is written well and as I mentioned above has an unforgettable main character. For me, the book was 3 stars but check it out for yourselves.
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