Gallant (V. E. Schwab)

Gallant
V. E. Schwab
Greenwillow
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Horror
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: Olivia Prior has no memory of her mother. All she has is a worn green journal whose words document a slow, confusing slide into madness before the woman dropped Olivia off at the Merilance School for Girls. Merilance is a dismal place, made worse by how Olivia is treated: a mute orphan girl who cannot even look forward to the menial life of servitude the other girls are groomed for. It would be worse if they knew the truth, that Olivia can see "ghouls", half-formed ghosts with pieces missing who drift in the shadows and vanish whenever she looks directly at them. Sometimes she wonders if her mother saw ghouls, too, or if the mysterious madwoman is one herself now.
One day, Olivia is summoned to the headmistress's office. A letter has arrived for her, from an uncle she never knew about, summoning her "home". It seems odd that any relative who claims to love her, as the letter writer does, left her to languish in Merilance's cruelties for most of her childhood and adolescence, but anywhere must be better than the boarding school, and maybe this "uncle" will have answers about her mother. Only when she finally arrives, she sees a name she recognizes from her mother's journal: Gallant.
Mom seemed convinced that Olivia would only be safe if she never went to Gallant; it may have been why she was abandoned in the first place. But Olivia cannot bring herself to leave, not even when she learns that nobody knows who actually sent the letter summoning her. The pictures on the wall, with her own features looking back at her, make it clear enough that this is her family home, that her mother once lived here, and the young woman will not go until she finally has some answers. Unfortunately, Gallant's secrets may have been the death of Olivia's mother... and if she doesn't escape soon, it might be the death of her, too.

REVIEW: Gallant is a nice take on the traditional gothic horror trope of family curses and brooding old manors full of ghosts and secrets. From the start, Olivia is no passive victim, but a willful young woman determined to fight back against a life that keeps trying to keep her down "in her place", not above the odd petty act of vengeance against her tormentors. Even the "ghouls" she sees do not bring her fear or have her cringing in terror, as she learned they can't touch her and she can banish them with a hard glare; they're just one more piece of a puzzle she doesn't have nearly enough clues to solve, the puzzle of her mother's madness and disappearance and the strange entries in the green journal. Being mute only makes her that much more observant of other people, even as it can be frustrating trying to communicate with those who won't or can't understand what she's trying to tell them via sign or writing. Her hope at finally escaping Merilance is quickly dashed upon her inauspicious arrival at Gallant; instead of a loving uncle and a family opening its arms in love and acceptance, there are a pair of aging servants and a brooding, angry cousin whose first words are to order her to leave at once. There is also a mysterious wall in the back garden with an iron door that appears to go nowhere... until approached at night...
In keeping with the story's gothic roots, a grim atmosphere permeates the book and the characters, a sense of foreboding and doom that is present from the first pages to the last. From the gruesome, partially erased figures of the ghouls - which can appear as single eyes and arms with partial or absent torsos - to the nightmares that begin to torment Olivia from her first night in Gallant to interludes between chapters that point to a lurking evil waiting patiently as a spider with an inescapable web, Schwab does not stint on the darkness, though Olivia only rarely succumbs to the weight of it, always managing to find more fight in her, and she is not entirely without allies. Adding to the atmosphere are illustrations from Olivia's mother's notebook, dark and haunting renderings like shaped ink blots on the page, that eventually tie into the unfolding mystery. There are no easy answers or easy wins, and every step of progress comes at a terrible cost.
Though the tale moves fairly well, the ending feels abrupt, with a few stray threads left over that don't tie up neatly. Otherwise, it's an excellent, if very dark, story.

You Might Also Enjoy:
The In-Between (Rebecca K. Ansari) - My Review
Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review