In December, I finished Gallant by V. E. Schwab. Delighted by its intriguing cover artwork and its satisfying square shape, I knew as soon as I saw this book that I had to read it.

Gallant is about Olivia– a poor voiceless orphan living at a loveless, grey and drab school for girls. She is summoned from this unhappy environment by a most unexpected letter from an uncle calling her home to Gallant. Previously believing that she had no family or hope for love in the world, Olivia leaves for Gallant with hardly any hesitations–save for one critical detail. A warning written in her late mother’s notebook: that Olivia would be safe, as long as she stays away from Gallant.

Of course, Olivia does not stay away. She goes to Gallant in the hope of having a family. Her mother’s notebook is all Olivia has to call her own, with her mother’s cryptic–and mad–words engraved in her memory. Upon arriving at Gallant, Olivia is faced more than ever with the mystery of her mother’s past and with a hostile premonition of a family curse. Will Olivia decipher the mystery of her family that she previously did not know existed? And will the ghosts that live and linger in the beautiful yet failing halls of Gallant provide Olivia with the answers she so longs for? There is an evil encroaching upon the halls of Gallant, and Olivia only has so long to protect her new home.

Right from the start, an orphan girl with little capacity for speech (as those around her blatantly refuse to even try to understand what Olivia is trying to say) and with an ability to see ghouls–horrible, vaporous, and haunting beasts–intrigued me from the start. The drab, grey, and awful school for girls with a long, wordy name is what I expect to see in a middle-grade book.

However, as some arguments state, this book is not strictly a middle-grade novel. There are the familiar tropes of the school, orphan girl, mysterious past, and notebook, yet this novel can easily be read by both children and adults. I prefer to call it a middle-grade because the plot itself isn’t too complicated or gets gory (as I felt it had the potential to if it were geared to an adult audience).

You have the heroine, Olivia, who has a sharply observant and critical voice and mind. I sympathized with her, as her attempts to communicate her thoughts are dismissed by the one person who can speak ASL by deliberately ignoring her. This leads Olivia depend solely upon herself in a new and unsettling place.

Then there is the romance and mystery of Olivia’s mother, her notebook, and the peculiar inkblot drawings, which brings into question the state of her mother’s sanity near the end of her life. Olivia grapples with questions about what happened to her mother and has an ongoing identity crisis as Olivia encounters the memory of her mother and a family she never knew of scattered throughout Gallant.

Accompanying the mystery of Gallant and her family’s tenuous past, is the wonderful garden. The description of the garden is one of my favorite things, with all the blooming tangle of flowers and the lush green of the grass. It really did give me secret garden vibes, especially when it came to the wall with the gate in the middle.

Yet, despite this beauty, it too is tainted by something that seems to plague Gallant. While Olivia ponders her past, she is also met with hostility from her cousin, Matthew. He is an angry and gaunt little boy, the master of the house since his father’s death, who insists that Olivia leave as soon as he sets eyes on her. Matthew’s mysterious and concerning ill-health only adds to the feeling that something is very wrong at Gallant.

Eventually, Olivia does discover what is going on at Gallant and finds out the critical truth about her mother amid a truly unsettling setting (which was great, I really like that part).

The resolution did feel a bit quick and easy, but there were sufficient high stakes and in the end, it was a satisfying conclusion. I believe this novel is intended as a standalone, which is too bad as it is an intriguing world.

Overall, Gallant is a worth-it read for me. It has a creepy atmosphere, bold heroine, mysterious past and an awesome villain. My only complaint is that I wish it was longer so as to get more of an immersion in the world.

In the end, I gave this book 3.5 out of 5 stars–a metric I base purely on how a book made me feel throughout. I hope to have a more sophisticated and objective rating system in the future.

Thanks for reading my review, and I do hope you let me know what you think of Gallant if you have read it or intend to 🙂

Pax 🙂