Reviews with content warning for Child death - Gallant

A dark, mysterious story told with stunning atmospheric writing! While I enjoyed my time reading this book, I was left wishing there was a bit more explanation behind Gallant's secrets.

Content Warnings

_pauline's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark

1.5

I felt like nothing happened, which tbf objectively isn’t true

however, if you love horror just for the vibes, maybe you’ll like it; I realised I prefer mysteries & thrillers. Gallant includes a lot of stuff like this:

Behind her eyes, she sees the corpses of small creatures rising at her touch, feels herself dragged into the darkness by dead hands, watches two dozen dancers turn to ash, bits of bone rattling on the ballroom floor as they skitter back to their master.

just not my genre I guess

Content Warnings

angeldevoursliterature's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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

3.5

Content Warnings

candyb0x's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

Utterly stunning. Showstopper.

But fr tho, this book had me from the first page. The writing is incredible, and the description was detailed without being exhausting. I can honestly say that I loved every minute of it. A few "unknowns" were pretty obvious to me, but I still enjoyed the journey. Would recommend

Content Warnings

leweylibrary's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

Gosh I love V. E. Schwab. This is so different from her other stuff I've read so far, and I loved it. It was the perfect amount of creepy and tense, the MC was really interesting and also pretty badass for a kid lol I love that she's mute and yet also kinda has this superpower to

bring life in the shadow Gallant.

I think that aspect of her identity also works well because so much of the narrative then can be in her own head through thoughts and memories rather than dialogue. And the

shadow Gallant being a place where the only one who speaks is the Master/Death but she doesn't need to speak, that this is a place where she SHOULD feel more at home, is really interesting to me.

The journals are also really interesting and the way the artwork in them works with the story, especially once you learn what exactly they are and who drew them. The entire

shadow Gallant aspect

is such a cool concept for a horror story like this.
Honestly I just can't wait to talk about this book with others in our book club! I feel like there's a lot of cool stuff going on that I'm only scratching the surface of on my own.

Content Warnings