Kid reviews for Gallant

I absolutely adore this book, I love V.E. Shwab’s writing style when she writes adult books like this (yes, this book was meant to be an adult book but I kind of love how any age would love this book). No extreme blood & gore, but the ghouls Olivia sees are like rotting humans (the way I’ve described it sounds worse than what in actually is) and the Master of the House on the other side creates minions out of bones in his body. Palms are sliced open but not too badly and Matthew has awful nightmares so is sometimes drugged to sleep better. Also she mentions dumping a bag of bugs over a girl while she was sleeping and sometimes breaks things to be heard. Romancy stuff? Olivia mentions kissing a boy once but nothing else. The book was quite slow paced but in an elegant and spooky way that held suspense really well. It was on the verge of being a copycat of Coraline (by Neil Gaiman) because of the alternate versions of a house and writing style but I still thoroughly enjoyed it and though it was different enough. Overall I think a 10 year old would probably be able to read it but might not understand some of the words. I would recommend it to anyone who loves spooky books about ghosts and a strong female protagonist.

I had no idea what I was expecting from this, but it was better than I expected. I've never read any of V.E Schwab's books before, but I thoroughly enjoyed her style of writing. It was very mysterious (kinda had a Gothic feel to it), and it had me hooked from page one. This novel twisted and turned and unfolded in unexpected ways, and the ending was pretty sound and satisfactory. There was no active romance, though in the beginning, it is mentioned that the girls from the Merilance school meet with boys on the streets after dark. Olivia recalls that a boy once "held her by the waist" and "kissed her," asking her if this is what she wanted. It is unclear whether or not her father and mother were married when they had her. There is no language, either (the most was maybe one use of "damn" and one or two uses of "hell.") Olivia can see ghouls, and sometimes how they are described can be creepy (i.e., bones poking through skin, rotting flesh, teeth showing through the cheek, parts of the face missing, etc.) The storyline flowed smoothly and at a steady pace, and overall I think it's a fantastic, very well written novel. Would recommend to anyone!