Reviews

Gallant by V.E. Schwab

amandasky21's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This novel is incredibly atmospheric  and detailed, so much so that it does create a movie in your head. However, because of how detailed visually the book seemed to be written as, I felt as though the character development with the main character, Olivia, fell flat. The pacing took too long in getting her accustomed to Gallant, that by the third act I was already bored, even with her meeting

Death

. Even with the found family trope of the book, it felt cliche and forced. I felt as though the author could have done more with her bonding with her found family, and maybe create a balance in her finding out about her parents and appreciating her found family. I genuinely think that this would make a great movie, but as a novel, it did fall flat. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Death, Grief, Death of parent, and Abandonment

Minor: Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Gore, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

cdicara17's review against another edition

5.0

This was absolutely fucking fantastic. Oh my God, I love her brain and the way that she writes and the way that she writes her characters and the plot and the setting and literally everything. This was a very simple book. It all took place over the course of I want to say Five days at most maybe even only three, but it didn’t feel rushed. It felt very natural that the plot happened so quickly, and I still felt very engaged in both the story and the characters and I really was upset because the ending was very sad but damn the story and the metaphors and the messages were just so beautiful and so well done and the main character. Olivia was such a bad ass. There weren’t many characters in this book, but each of them had a story. It reminded me a lot of the haunting of Bly Manor and it also reminded me of for the Wolf, but this was done so much better than that book was, I’m so happy that I read this. It was a very quick read. I’m also really happy that I own a copy so that I can look at the illustrations because I didn’t realize it was illustrated very efficient and excellent read. good job. Good job. Good job.

gakatw's review against another edition

4.0

Everyone makes the Coraline comparison with this book, but may I propose: The Secret Garden if it was evil.
On a serious note, I found the disability rep in this book wonderful! The main character is mute and uses sign language, but it's not revealed to be some hocus-pocus fantasy thing halfway through -- that's just how she is. I liked that.

chroniclerofcreepy's review against another edition

3.0

Unique story that borders between horror and a fairytale. I really began to enjoy it about 70% through when it got to the true meat of the story.

I would have given it more stars but honestly I didn't like the voice of the book. The third party narration felt very distant so it was difficult to capture the true essence of any character or to feel the mood of various scenes. I think this book would have been phenomenal in first person.

jmason19's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

bookswithcesco's review against another edition

2.0

Probably a super unpopular opinion on this one but here we go.

I should preface this by saying that I’ve read and watched every Coraline theory imaginable, and I knew this was a YA and adjusted my expectations accordingly.

Schwab is a fantastic writer, her prose is captivating and her ideas and interpretations always fascinate me. That being said, I have yet to read a book of hers that captivates me with characters and execution alone.

Olivia was a good character on paper. But I just didn’t care about her or the conflict. I found myself more interested in her investigation with her mom’s past and the journals than any of the shadow/ghoul shit we had going on.

The book reads like Coraline, but if it was made to be higher fantasy with a niche magic system that only works with a handful of people. The antagonist was bland, but mirrored Coraline in so many ways that I couldn’t stop comparing it in the ways he failed to meet my expectations. I wanted more to happen and needed better closure on half of the minor plot points sooner than we got.

Also the ending is pretty lacklustre, but it was the highlight of the book for me, since I got too far to justify a DNF without just finishing it.

bluneptunes's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

ohsarajay's review against another edition

3.0

There's so much atmosphere but I couldn't really get into it. I can't tell if it's because I found the characters so frustrating, but that was certainly part of it. Personally if I received an unwanted visitor to my creepy gothic house where I

try to keep death contained behind a garden wall

I would understand that vaguely saying "oh no don't go there" is probably not gonna do as a solid warning. 
I did really enjoy the writing and read this quite quickly, but it didn't feel as substantial as I would have liked.

greyvibrancy's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

landroid55's review against another edition

5.0

Not your traditional.ghost story.