One of the books I bought in London was City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab. It was very high on my wishlist and I was hoping to find it there. Obviously I had to read it right away and finished it before I got back home. Today I’ll tell you all my thoughts on this middle grade novel by one of my favorite authors.

 Cover

I really wanted the paperback edition for this book as I like this cover better than the cover for the hardback edition. Red is one of my favorite colors so that’s already a pluspoint for this one. The Edinburgh skyline looks really cool and I like the little starlike specks on the black night sky. I also really love the the people/ghosts next to our main character. They’re actually quite subtle on the book, but I managed to capture them quite well in the picture. All I can say is, I love this cover and think it fits the book perfectly.

Plot

City of Ghosts tells the story of Cass, the daughter of two ghosts hunter-book writers. Which is pretty ironic because Cass can actually see ghosts and her very best friend is one. Cassidy’s parents are offered a television show where they would visit haunted cities and that means the holiday will take the family to Edinburgh. Cass is not happy about this at all and that’s before she knows whats about to happen. I really enjoyed the plot for this book and flew through it. We get to know Cassidy a little bit at the start of the book and learn how she ‘deals’ with ghosts. The book gets pretty creepy quite soon and the atmosphere stayed this way throughout the whole novel. Edinburgh was such a great setting for this book and I really want to go there right away haha.

“Sometimes help is a place and sometimes it’s a person, and sometimes it’s a bit of both.”

The story develops quite quickly as you would expect from a middle grade novel. But despite this quick development there was still a lot to the story. I was completely sucked in and actually quite a bit freaked out haha. As you can tell from the title, there are a lot of ghosts in this book, some of them sad and others very creepy. The main ‘mystery’ was great and am very excited for the sequel. I read somewhere that this will be a duology but I would love it to be an extensive series. It would be so great to read about a ton of different cities and have creepy mysteries all over the world. I’m very excited to see where in the world the sequel will take us. Also there were so many Harry Potter references and I loved it!

Characters

Cassidy or Cass is our main character. She was really enjoyable to read abound definitely a lovable character. I wouldn’t say there was a ton of character development but I don’t think it was that necessary in this book. Cass did learn a lot and I think she will have a bit more development in the next book.

I really liked Cassidy’s parents, they were actually present and got really upset when they couldn’t find her for a bit. They were fun to read about and I loved that they were involved with their kid. Sure, they weren’t perfect but they’re a lot better than most YA parents.

“Embrace your strange, dear daughter. Where’s the fun in being normal?”

Jacob is Cass’s best friend and a ghost. He was pretty fun to read about and I did see some development in his character. I loved how protective he was of Cass and loved their ‘rules of friendship’. Jacob has some secrets of his own and I can’t wait to find out where the sequel is bringing us in regards to that.

All in all a very enjoyable read, especially for Victoria Schwab fans like myself. I said it multiple times already but I’m excited for the sequel and hope it will be more than just a duology. Did you read this one yet? Or do you plan on reading it? Let me know in the comments!