My summary:

Olivia Prior has been at the Merliance boarding school since she was two years old, where she was left on the steps with nothing but her mother’s journal. Now 14, a letter arrives from an uncle summoning Olivia home to Gallant—the one place her mother’s journal warned her away from. Olivia has no choice but to go to Gallant despite her mother’s warning, but her dread is mixed with the promise of having a family and a home. 

My thoughts:

Gallant by V. E. Schwab (a.k.a. Victoria Schwab) is a dark, young adult, fantasy standalone novel. This is not a genre that I typically read but I love Schwab’s writing so much that I wanted to read some of her backlist while waiting for her next release. Her writing is very lyrical and I enjoy the style of it. 

I found this to be well written but a little creepier than I prefer my books to be. Overall I enjoyed it, but it’s just a bit outside of my comfort zone of the typical books that I read. A couple of the plot points were a bit hard to follow but it is worth the read. 

I was first introduced to V. E. Schwab’s  writing with the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and I adore that book so much. It was the first fantasy book that I had ever read and it opened the door for me to read and love other fantasy books since then. I have since read her Darker Shades of Magic trilogy and then her new spinoff of that series, The Fragile Threads of Power, which I especially enjoyed.