City of Ghosts follows our main character Cassidy who can see and talk to ghosts - in fact, her best friend Jacob is a ghost. When Cassidy's parents start filming their ghost hunting show in Scotland, an area in which is filled with ghosts, Cassidy learns the "truth" about her powers and how dangerous her situation may be.

I don't actually read many Middle Grade novels. The only Middle Grade I read are Rick Riordan books although, some of his newer books seem to fit the Young Adult genre a little more.

In all honesty, I generally had no interest in this book when it was first announced because I wasn't really into Middle Grade novels. I thought it was going to be incredibly cliche and basically an overall cookie cut replica of other Middle Grade novels.

A little after this book was announced, I read the first book in Schwab's adult fantasy series (where she writes as V.E Schwab instead of Victoria Schwab) and I absolutely loved her writing. I previously read her Young Adult book The Savage Song, which was also amazing, but it never made an impact or stuck to me like A Darker Shade of Magic did.

Once I read A Darker Shade of Magic and fell in love with not only the world but her writing, I decided to give City of Ghosts a shot as well and I definitely don't regret that decision.

To start off, Schwab's writing progresses every book she writes and you can tell. Some writer's spark dies down and their writing does as well; but some stay the same. Schwab's writing is completely different. I find that every new published book I read by this author, her writing continues to grow and be better.

I think that is one of the aspects that I loved about this novel was how amazing the book was written. And for those who aren't really into Middle Grade but absolutely love Young Adult novels, I find that although City of Ghosts is classified as Middle Grade, I feel like it fits the YA genre quite well.

The writing or plot doesn't necessarily have mature themes per se, but it does have the generalize writing style that can be seen in a YA novel oppose to Middle Grade in which it's not repetitive and it's not overly simplistic either.

Another aspect I really loved was the world building. I would definitely classify this novel as Paranormal but also Urban Fantasy because a lot of the plot takes place in our world - Earth. But the idea of The Veil and how it's basically like Earth but Cassidy could see the ghosts around that no one could, really sparked my interest especially with how it was portrayed in the novel.

This book very much so reminds me of the movie ParaNorman in which our child main character can see ghosts around him and he freely talks to them but the humans who share their environment with Norman and cannot see the ghosts, think he's crazy.

I'm not a huge paranormal book to be quite honest because I find that most paranormal books that I've read are quite cheesy, but because of the way it was written and the whole relation to ParaNorman really made me love this book a million times more.

My readers also know how much of a sucker I am for characters, so of course, I wanted to dive into the character sector as well.

For starters, I loved Cassidy's relationship with her ghost-friend Jacob. I absolutely loved it.

I felt a genuine relationship between them - and my relationship, I mean friendship. There are some Middle Grade novels that have that romance trait, although it isn't as in depth as YA books, they still happen.

With Cassidy and Jacob, I love that they don't put a strain on an actual relationship (I think it would also be weird if Cassidy fell in love with a ghost..) but it was a genuine friendship. Like, they looked out for each other and Jacob knew Cassidy's purpose with seeing ghosts is to send them off (pull ghosts heart string which no longer leaves them a spirit and allows them to rest peacefully.) but he never told her because he didn't want her to send him off because he wanted to protect her and not lose her as well.

And I think Cassidy felt the same for Jacob when Lara Jayne tells her to send Jacob off and she refuses.

You can tell the bond between them is a genuine bond and I'm happy Schwab didn't introduce any love aspects between the two.

I also loved their little bickering because it almost felt like a brother-sister relationship as well.

The only character I had a bit of a problem with was Lara Jayne, (who reminds me a lot of Lara Jean from To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han - but I'm not complaining) she annoyed me a lot when we were first introduced to her in the novel. Although, as her friendship with Cassidy expands and we get to know Lara a little more, she is a very interesting character. If you watch The Good Place, she reminds me a lot of Tahani.

The only reason why I gave it a 4.5 Stars and not a full five is because I'll admit it was a little too simple - not because it's a Middle Grade book, but I would've hoped we would be able to venture off into the ghostly world a little more. Hopefully, we will in the next coming books!

Overall, I loved City of Ghosts. It was absolutely amazing and I cannot wait for the next book!