- Abby Kernya
- Jun 9
- 3 min read
by Abbigale Kernya, for The 44 North
Managing Editor
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Gothic fiction
“I slept in your ashes last night. It was like you laid your shadow down before you left. It smelled like hearth smoke and winter air. I made a blanket of the empty space. I pressed my cheek against the place where yours had been.”
—V.E. Schwab, Gallant
Whenever I wrap up with a semester, I have a terribly hard time reading. It seems counterproductive given that my entire degree is based around reading novels at an inhumane pace and pumping out 1500 word essays on whatever repeating prompt my professor handed out that week.
In my prime, I could read three novels a week. Now having graduated and spent a month moving back to my parents’ house with more time on my hands than I will ever have again in life, picking up a book is a monumental task. Even on vacation last week, picking out a beach read consisted of me sitting around the bags of books packed up and ready to take on my road trip across the country that felt reminiscent of staring at a blank canvas and waiting for a painting to appear. It was like I had lost a sense of who I am as a reader.
That is until I remembered my Audible credits that had been building for the better half of the semester and suddenly a glimmer of hope reignited back to my Goodreads reading challenge and I felt that maybe, this could be my chance to get back into the groove.
I had read V.E. Schwab’s other young adult fantasy books before, and remembered feeling like they had done themselves a disservice by marketing itself to a younger audience. Her writing is as sophisticated as it is dreamy, and I lost myself those years ago drowning in the little worlds she created on the page. When Gallant appeared on my Audible suggested list, it was a no-brainer.
In V.E. Scwab fashion, the writing in this short stand alone launches it to a new level of magical to a haunting degree. It follows young Olivia as she traces her family footprints from escaping the orphanage she was left at to answering a mysterious note written by her dead uncle—winding up at the very house her mother and father died to keep her from. But after all, how dangerous can a house be when the promise of family outweighs the ghouls that haunt her anyways? If I was plagued by the undead, I know I would want to do it in a mansion surrounded by other, somewhat…peculiar people.
Olivia comes to a head with her supernatural gift and the challenged Gallant offers her in exchange for a remedy to her loneliness. With her cousin Matthew at odds with her and Olivia at odds with the mysterious curse around her namesake, she undergoes an adventure that could cost her everything with the promise of everything.
I listened to this book in a matter of days, always looking for excuses to go on walks or lounge by the resort’s pool absentmindedly in order to keep digging this mystery until it reveals itself in an unwinding web of V.E. Schwab’s brilliant storytelling. It was exactly what I needed to get back into reading. The blend of the gothic, mystery, found family, and a generational stain waiting to be cured, Gallant was an easy five star read.
“I slept in your ashes last night. It was like you laid your shadow down before you left. It smelled like hearth smoke and winter air. I made a blanket of the empty space. I pressed my cheek against the place where yours had been.”
