Book Review | Gallant by V. E. Schwab

"Free—a small word for such a magnificent thing. I don’t know what it feels like, but I want to find out."

There are some days when NetGalley is the best thing in the world

I was obsessed with The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue when I got it, and I took forever to read it when I got it just because I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t even think I’d be approved for this because Edelweiss+ turned me down! And now here I am!

Review

I’m not going to try and make this a good review, I love this book too much to write a good one! Just read it and be happy that you live in a world with authors like this one!

Gallant is different to The Invisible Life. The Invisible Life is soft and comforting; Gallant is sharp, the prose crisp. It’s also got a Coraline meets the Secret Garden vibe to it, which is magnificent! Also when your main tells you about how she strangled a girl and got her hair chopped off, and still makes eye-contact with the other girl and smiles about it you’re like wow, I’m going to love you. Like you can come to life and kill me and I would still think of it as an okay way to go.

Am I allowed to say that?

That doesn’t mean that I love it any less; absolutely not. I want my own copy and I want to read everything V. E. Shwab writes.

“Put the right words into the world,” he says, “never know what you’ll catch.”

I also feel like people who liked this will also really like Graveye by Sloane Leong, but maybe I’m just putting a bunch of creepy houses together!

The Blurb

Everything casts a shadow. Even the world we live in. And as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch. A seam, where the shadow meets its source.

Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for Girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal—which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home; it doesn’t matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile, or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways.

Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant—but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unraveled generations of her family, and where her father may have come from.

Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world against the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him?

New York Times–bestselling author V. E. Schwab crafts a vivid and lush novel that grapples with the demons that are often locked behind closed doors. An eerie, stand-alone saga about life, death, and the young woman beckoned by both. Readers of Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, Melissa Albert, and Garth Nix will quickly lose themselves in this novel with crossover appeal for all ages.