Gallant by V.E. Schwab

"An interesting stand alone by Schwab that follows Olivia Prior, an orphan girl whose only link to her past is her mother's journal. On the very last page is a letter to Olivia, expressly telling her to stay away from Gallant. And of course, that's the one place where Olivia ends up. This was an interesting story about family, courage, love and how everything has a balance."

3 Stars

Pros: The idea of a shadow world is an interesting one/Hannah & Edgar 💖/The ending was good but, it hit hard.

Cons: I do wish we'd gotten to see more of Olivia's parents and the history of the Priors but, I guess that's part of the mystery, the not knowing.

Full Review

Olivia Prior has nothing. No friends, no family, no place to call her own. She's lived her entire life in Merilance, an orphanage for independent girls. The girls are cruel, the matrons strict but Olivia just keeps to herself. She's non-verbal and can't communicate with the others, so she's very much alone. But the one thing that brings her comfort is her only possession, a journal that belonged to her mother. She's memorized every page and passage. They're vague but she gets the general idea that most of the entries are directed towards her Father. It starts out as a love story but soon turns into a tragedy.

Her father passes away shortly before Olivia is born and the entries in the journal grow darker, more despondent and sinister. Olivia doesn't like to linger on the last entries until at the very end, there is a letter to Olivia, explaining that the dreams cannot hurt her, that the shadows are not real and that she'll be safe, as long as she stays away from Gallant.

Of course, she's soon called to the Head Matron's office and given a letter. It's from an Uncle she never knew she had, Arthur Prior, and the letter is calling her home, to the only place she's not supposed to go, Gallant. But, Olivia's stuck, so she takes the letter and is brought to the sprawling estate of Gallant and there she meets Edgar and Hannah and her cousin, Matthew.

No one quite knows how Olivia got the letter and it's obvious that Matthew doesn't want her anywhere near the house. Of course, things never quite work out the way we planned and since Olivia is quite a headstrong girl, she decides to try and find out what the big mystery is about the house and the garden wall that Matthew meticulously maintains.

Sometimes though, ignorance is bliss.

This was an interesting novel. It wasn't my favorite of Schwab's but it was entertaining, for what it was. I'd give it a solid 3 stars because I do enjoy the way Schwab writes but at the same time, the shadow world, the Master, all of it was a little obscure but Schwab did her best and managed to end the novel well.

Comments

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