City of Ghosts
Ratings129
Average rating3.7
Cassidy Blake knows what it's like to pass into the world of the dead. The Veil reaches out to her, calling for her to witness the final moments of ghosts trapped in time. Alongside her ghost best friend, Jacob, Cassidy navigates both the worlds of the living and the dead. When her parents have the opportunity to explore haunted cities for their new TV show, Cassidy tags along. But their first destination, Edinburgh, Scotland is a city filled with unsettled spirits. When one known as the Red Raven catches sight of Cassidy in the Veil, she fixates on stealing Cassidy’s life to walk among the living once more.
Cassidy is a character filled with curiosity about the unknown. And while her parents spin tales of ghosts to entertain their viewers, there is a difference between believing in the old stories and Cassidy being able to see ghosts. Jacob on the other hand is ironically a ghost who does not enjoy scary situations. But being Cassidy’s best friend means he’s along for every single encounter with fellow spirits and has to hear about the chilling tales from Cassidy’s parents. Jacob’s quips and smart remarks certainly help to break the tension at key moments throughout the story.
As they ventured from one haunted site to another, Victoria Schwab painted the picture of a historical and haunted Edinburgh in wonderful detail. Being able to observe Cassidy’s parents filming their haunted TV show allowed readers to be introduced to ghost stories from Edinburg without using large drops of information. They are just enough detail for Cassidy when she traversed the veil to see the spirits. And oftentimes her parent’s stories would start the ramp-up of tension that would then amplify as Cassidy witnessed firsthand the ghosts they spoke about.
City of Ghosts is the perfect starting point for young readers and even adults who are interested in ghost stories. There is just enough of a spooky feeling and close encounters to draw readers in but not overwhelm them. Cassidy's friendship with Jacob also has a wonderful comedic relief and their back and forth banter adds a charming touch to the story. This is a fast-paced, enjoyable read and a great series to start during October. I highly recommend this to fans of ghost stories.
Originally posted at www.behindthepages.org.
I enjoyed it enough to start book two. Nothing spectacular, the storyline isn't unique. The characters stay true to character, which is important to me, not doing so kills a book instantly. Jacob could be a bit more, hopefully his back story will come with book two. I hope book two isn't just a repeat of book one like so many recent series tend to do.
I love Victoria's writing. This is the second book by her that I have read and I loved it just as much as the other one!
3.5 stars
I can finally say I have read a Victoria Schwab book!! I have owned several of this author books for years but kept putting off reading them for some reason. City of Ghosts is my first book by this author and I thought it was pretty good. I'm pretty sure this is middle grade and I think for it being a middle grade it was done well and I can see the age group that it is marketed to loving it. For me I found it was very simplistic. Don't get me wrong I did really enjoy the story but I wasn't blown away by it. Everything just seemed to easy and predictable. I will say I absolutely loved the friendship between Jacob and Cassidy. That was probably my favorite thing about this book. There were some things hinted about Jacob that I really hope turn out not to be true because I really love his character at this point and I don't want that to be ruined. So overall an enjoyable read and I do plan to continue on with the next book in the series at some point.
It wasn't mind-blowing and out of this word but it was definitely clever and entertaining. I can't wait to get to the next book!
Y'all can thank me, I sold my soul so we can get more Victoria Schwab books in 2018.
Anyways, I have a vague sense that I read this book somewhere before. Perhaps in another book by Schwab. Cough [b:The Archived|10929432|The Archived (The Archived, #1)|Victoria Schwab|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1338729878l/10929432.SX50.jpg|15846509] cough. But there's no Mackenzie and Wesley and it wasn't as good, which is a shame.
Also it's probably a three star book, but my future children's first words are probably gonna be “Victoria Schwab” so I added a bonus star just for that.
What a fun and spooky adventure this book was! I'm excited to continue with the series.
First read of the year.
A bit unrealistic to my taste, I'm not much into fantasy anymore, but since I'm obsessed with the paranormal, I had to give it a try.
Recommend it if you, like me, are a paranormal lover.
My rate: 3,5 ⭐️
A short read with fun characters and an intriguing storyline. Maybe a little creepy for young readers.
I looooved the atmosphere of this book, all dark and dusky but the characters were so bright. It was a fun little read :)
my first audiobook ever! it was a lot of fun listening to this at night in the dark lol
Overall I really did enjoy this book and plan on continuing the series. I liked how easily we got to experience the city with her. I feel like this could be easily made to a great movie. My big gripe is that sometimes I felt like Cassidy had a ~i'm not like other girls~ attitude which I don't like reading about regardless of the targeted age demographic.
A fun ghost story! My one quibble is that Cassidy's narration of learning British words for things seemed very middle-grade Fancy Nancy and I got annoyed! (Portcullis is fancy for spiky door!!) But overall an enjoyable read.
i've decided to adopt jacob, yes, he's my son now. i won't be accepting any questions at this time
I was looking for a good spooky book for October and heard about the second book in this series being published so I grabbed this one from the library. I loved it! The characters and the premise of the story are well thought out and I loved feeling like I was visiting Scotland through the story. If you are looking for a spooky, suspenseful story with an interesting twist, this is a great choice!
This is a quick and fun read. I thought it was a perfect book for the spooky fall season.
I don't know why I didnt put this as read, but okay.
I LOVED THIS BOOK. It was so incredibly good and I was so so excited when I found out that there would be a second book.
The story was so interesting with a lot of historical elements. Also, ghost stories? Yes please.
A fun fast paced but too short adventure
This is my third book by Victoria Schwab. I've read her adult book Shades of Magic, her YA book The Savage Song and now her middle grade book City of Ghosts. This book was a fun and fast paced read, I found the characters interesting and the setting Edinburgh, Scotland delightful (I want to see it now minus the ghosts). I wish th book was longer though, it felt too short and I thought we could have seen more of Lara and the city. I will check out the next book in the series
i really, really wanted to like this because i love ve schwab but this one really fell short. it could be because it is a middle grade book that all my favourite complexities of a schwab world was missing, as it kind of felt like a general outline of a great schwab story. i felt no connection to any of the characters and really didn't care what happened to them, and the plot wasn't interesting at all. BUT for the intended demographic (children ages 8-11), this could be a really fun ~spooky~ read. it could be that i was just simply... too old for this book. definitely will not be picking up the sequel unfortunately :(
This was amazing! A very nice and simple read but engaging enough to keep me going. Can't wait to continue the story. More of Jacob's story please 😄