The Diviners & The Twenties

It almost feels fitting that the Diviners is coming to an end in the first year of the New Twenties, as I've seen people call this new decade. It's like a little taste of what's to come, but in a... hopefully less dark way.

As you can surmise by reading the summary of just the first book, supernatural murders are happening left and right and that's just in the first book. Unfortunately, because I only really got that urge to read last year, and decided they would be some of my first books read in 2020 to ring in the new decade- I have only had the chance to read the first book. But believe me, I have the other two that are out coming in, and will be grabbing The King of Crows the second it's out.

Anyways, into the meat of it, the reason I knew about this series and the reason I fell in love with it even before I read it.

The fandom! Actually, for once, it was indeed the fans that made me want to consume something rather than made me want to never touch it ever!

I've been seeing Diviners edits on Tumblr since I think 2012, so a year after I made my Tumblr, and I will admit, most of them were Sam & Evie edits. So my first contact with these books was indeed the ship that... as I see now from finishing the first book, isn't canon yet. I did a bit of searching too, as I don't really consider stuff about ships in multiple pov books to be spoilers, and I've seen a handful of things, but for the most part, it seems Jericho and Evie are canon, for the moment.

So I fell in love with Sam and Evie, and when I picked up The Diviners and sat down to read it, realized Sam wasn't really coming into play until a decent ways into the book, and found myself scratching my head. Of course it was my fault, I took so long to pick up the series so of course I was witnessing a fandom many years deep.

But I still greatly enjoyed this book, and I think, maybe I wouldn't have if I hadn't of been second hand experiencing it for years. I don't know, but either way, what I did get out of this book, was indeed A Lot.

It was perfect to start 2020 out with, as there's this sense of hope, in all the characters, even as terrible things begin to unravel. There's this ah yes, things are looking grim, but it's the roaring twenties, and we've got each other and booze and a bright future! Of course we all know logistically they fell flat into the great depression after, but, that's not what matters here when comparing the Roaring Twenties with the New Twenties.

(I also wanted to briefly input that the Great Gatsby is going up for public use in 2021 so we're about to see an influx of Gatsbian adaptations and retellings.)

Now of course when the Diviners characters look back at the before years, they see The Great War, they see horrible stuff and they see a reason to celebrate. To forget. To honor those lost by carrying on and living well.

When we look back at the 10s and the 00s, and the 90s we see war, we see horror, we see reason to fight back, to live and honor those that have made our lives possible. Be that those lost in the initial gay rights movement and the AIDS crisis, the women around the world that have thrown their bodies at the machine to trip it up and break into the system.

We, just as they think, well nothing worse than that can come next! And then of course, for the past at least four years, it has indeed, steadily gotten worse. It's almost like we're dunking our own heads in toilets and flushing them. (Of course we know who's actually doing the dunking BUT.)

So do we look back at the Roaring Twenties, at the Great Depression that followed, the Great War that preceded it, and go "nah, everything horrific has happened before 2020 we'll surely have a good couple of decades first."

I think we already have our answer in the climate crisis and the fact that we have... not many years to turn it around. Especially considering the way this past year's weather has been. Increasingly bad natural disasters. Winter having 60+ degree days here in America.

But, I digress, let's step away from that, the horrid stuff we have constantly swirling around us. Because here we are in a new decade, and for the US we have a new election coming up, and if we let the hopelessness get to us, that's where we fail.

I think, like The Diviners, we should step into this new decade with our dancing shoes on and our twirling dresses and fancy suits and over dramatic new fun makeup(please let's kill the Instagram beauty trend. Please. Let people have fun with makeup again. And for gods sake stop pressuring teenagers to have perfect makeup and skin)

Recognize that there are bad things happening, and take care of your own mental state while still fighting for what's right.

That's the true spirit of the roaring twenties, and it's exactly what we need to bring into the new twenties.

Anyways, I didn't want to just do a review, especially not of the series since I haven't finished it, but I couldn't help but feel like there was something to say about this series, particularly the first book, and how it connects to us now.