A review by maeverose
City of Ghosts by V.E. Schwab

3.0

This was just okay for me as an adult, I think I would’ve liked it a lot as a kid though, especially because I loved the ghost hunters tv show. So a good book for the intended audience. The story and ‘magic system’ (ig?) was fun and interesting, I liked the characters for the most part (though Cassidy does fall into the ‘not like other girls’ trope, unfortunately). I actually think this series would be really great if it got adapted into movies or a tv show.

A few minor dislikes:

I found the way Jacob breaks the fourth wall by responding to Cass’s narration to be a bit cringy. It implies that she’s essentially narrating her life in her head. To be fair, for a middle grade novel it works, and it’s mostly only awkward in the beginning when she’s explaining her life story. I got used to it pretty quickly after that.

This was written before it was mainstream knowledge that jk rowling is a terf, but it still really annoyed me that there were eight harry potter references in this book. Eight. Including one praising jk rowling herself. I’m aware that Victoria/V.E. Schwab uses she/they pronouns and is therefore probably not cis so I doubt she agrees with jk rowling’s opinions, but even so eight references to a specific author in one short book is just excessive, no matter who that author is.

I felt like Cassidy was a little too clueless about British culture and words. I’m American and I knew what at least half of these terms meant was when I was probably six. Cassidy is twelve.