Firstly, a huge thank you to Titan Books for sending me an ARC to review!

Pages: 310
Publisher: Titan Books
Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal, Young Adult

⭐⭐⭐

“Sixteen-year old Olivia Prior is missing three things: a mother, a father and a voice. Her mother vanished all at once, her father by degrees, and her voice was a thing she never had to start with. Her only companions are the ghouls she sees and her mother’s journal, which captured a mind in turmoil.”

At first glance, I thought I was going to enjoy Gallant a lot more than I did. The old manor house, a paranormal presence and the promise of death over the garden wall were what peaked my interest when Gallant was first announced last year. Gave a lot of Crimson Peak vibes, ya know? I love Schwab’s writing, period. Reading her voice in her stories, the way she constructs sentences to create visuals, emotions and characters in your mind are what draws me to her books, but they just weren’t as strong here as in her previous works. Usually when I pick up one of her books I know its Schwab after only reading a few sentences but here I found myself even forgetting that she had even written this.

Olivia is an interesting enough MC and I liked how as the story went on we learnt more about her time at Merilance School for Girls through her exploration of Gallant. Sometimes a chapter would end on a cliff-hanger then the next would start with what seemed like the continuation but it was actually one of Olivia’s memories from her old life that drew certain parallels to her current predicament.

I did enjoy the way the book was constructed. The journaling sections were pretty cool and some of my favourite pieces to read throughout. I think my favourite were actually the entries from the unknown figure, which as the story goes on you eventually realise is Death himself.

I think I wanted more magical garden vibes from this book, even the spooky decaying garden of the other Gallant didn’t feel super whimsical. Despite the book’s more macabre theme with ghouls roaming the halls, a decaying garden and a family mostly dead, Gallant didn’t have much to say about loss or what it means to lose a family member. It goes into it a little bit but doesn’t have anything profound to say, at least not much more than what the reader will already know through their own experiences. The plot of this book is basically something mysterious on the other side of the garden wall is taking your loved ones away from you and cursing those that remain but beyond that the book doesn’t have much to say on grief at all.

Even now I’m thinking back on it and I just think “why?”, like what was the purpose of this story if not to say something about loss or grief? Schwab’s middle grade series “Cassidy Blake” touch on this while also having a fun and spooky adventure/mystery plot. Gallant is slow up until the last 30 pages and then the conflict resolves with little to no rise and fall of action. If you’re looking for a spooky series about girls and ghosts and grief I’d recommend picking up Schwab’s City of Ghosts instead of Gallant.

I think with the right director you could probably make a beautifully haunting movie out of this book, the plot is a little lacklustre but I can definitely see how you could create beautiful visuals with macabre elements.

I’ve read a some reviews since drafting this up and quite a few people have said that they’re just not into Schwab’s Young Adult writing style anymore, I think I’m one of them now. She’s still my favourite author so I’ll always give them a try, but maybe I won’t put up full reviews for them anymore.