City of Ghosts ★★★★
Tunnel of Bones ★★★1/2

I found Tunnel of Bones to be quite a bit less compelling than City of Ghosts, but it was still a fun, enjoyable read!

So what's going on here?
Tunnel of Bones follows Cassidy and her best friend Jacob, who just happens to be a ghost, as they make their way through all the ghostly parts of Paris as they film their parents paranormal television show. As is the norm for Cassidy and Jacob, wherever they go trouble follows. This time trouble comes in the form of poltergeist child, hellbent on wreaking havoc for not just Cassidy and her family, but the entirety of Paris as well. Cassidy and Jacob, with the help of Lara, a Paris tour guide, and an 11 year old descendent of the poltergeist, must help the child move on before anyone gets hurts.

What I loved
I absolutely adore the setting of Tunnel of Bones! The blurb makes you think that most of this book will be set in the Catacombs, which the main parts are, but they also explore other haunted areas that are equally famous and creepy. Schwab does a fantastic job at writing spooky scenes while also incorporating a good amount of comic relief (can't be too spooky for a middle grade book of course). But the paranormal aside, I think she did a fantastic job with the Paris setting in general; from the atmosphere, to the attitude of the people, and the deliciousness of the food (god I miss the food in France!). I really enjoyed the character development that Jaco went through, we start seeing more who he is and was before he died. And the side characters are really fun, I especially liked the tour guide (her name is escaping me right now oops).

What I didn't love
First off, I fully understand that this book is intended for a younger audience and I tried not to let that cloud my judgment too much (which is why I rounded up to a 4 instead of down to a 3). Maybe I'm just biased because 1. I've been to France multiple times, even lived there for a few months last year, and 2. I'm Canadian and we learn French in school here. But I found it really frustrating to follow Cassidy around Paris and while she knows absolutely nothing about France or the French language, not even numbers 1-10. Again, I may be biased because I know Americans learn Spanish in schools, but I and mostly everyone I know has some extremely basic Spanish despite not having learned it in school, so I always imagined it was the same with Americans and French. But I could be wrong! And with Cassidy not knowing anything about France, including things like a crepe and the Louvre, I found myself to be rolling my eyes a bit at how dumb she sounded (but at the same time, I understand that Schwab needed that much description because one should never assume that every single reader will know what you're talking about. But still, it was annoying).

Overall thoughts
Despite some small annoyances, this was overall an extremely enjoyable book and series. They're fun and light, with just the right amount of spook factor to make them perfect reads for the halloween season. I'm really looking forward the next book, and hopefully more after that!