Review: The City on the Other Side

Title: The City on the Other Side
Author: Mairghread Scott
Genre: Middle Grade, Graphic Novel
Publisher: First Second
Source: NetGalley
Release Date: April 24, 2018
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

When a wealthy and sheltered young girl stumbles into a pitched war between two fairy kingdoms, the fate of San Francisco itself hangs in the balance!

The first decade of the twentieth century is coming to a close, and San Francisco is still recovering from the great earthquake of 1906. Isabel watched the destruction safely from her window, sheltered within her high-society world.

Isabel isn’t the kind of girl who goes on adventures. But that all changes when she stumbles through the invisible barrier that separates the human world from the fairy world. She quickly finds herself caught up in an age-old war and fighting on the side of the Seelie—the good fairies.

Review:

I really enjoyed this middle grade fantasy graphic novel!

Isabel crossed the barrier between the human world and the fairy world. There are two types of fairies, the Seelies and the Unseelies. It was hard to distinguish between the Seelie and Unseelie because each fairy was a different creature and they didn’t have any defining characteristics.

Isabel was a great character. She gained a lot of strength while in the fairy world. She had to problem solve to find the princess. She was also a very dedicated girl, since she didn’t give up on her quest to find the princess, though she didn’t know anything about that world.

I loved that there was an explanation of the creation of the story at the end. It explained the setting of San Francisco and the earthquake that happened in 1906. It also explained that many different fairies were inspired by mythological creatures. This was so helpful, because I was wondering why they all had such unusual appearances.

This is a great graphic novel for middle grade readers!

Author: jilljemmett

Jill lives in Toronto, Canada. She has studied English, Creative Writing, and Publishing. Jill is the creator and content producer of Jill’s Book Blog, where she has published a blog post every day for the last four years, including 5-7 book reviews a week. She can usually be found with her nose in a book. View all posts by jilljemmett