Here’s another story I had high expectations for and was let down by.

Gallant tells us the story of Olivia, an orphan who singles out for being mute - a condition she doesn’t understand but has embraced -, and, most importantly, peculiar. Olivia is lonely, but never alone because ghouls keep her company since the moment she was born.

She doesn’t know much about them but has learned not to fear the ghouls as they are the only constant in her life; they and her mother’s journal are all she has.

It is through her mother’s journal that Olivia first reads about Gallant, a place she is not
to visit if she wants to stay safe, stay sane, a place her mother has fled when she was young and in love, in hopes of freeing herself from the cage that was keeping her bound.

One day, Olivia gets a letter from someone claiming to be her uncle. In the letter, it says he has been looking for her everywhere and wants to welcome her at his house, their home,
Gallant, the place her mother warned her not to set foot in. However, Olivia longs to
know what having a family feels like and to leave the walls of Merilance, the orphanage, behind.

“She wanted to want it, to feel what the other girls felt. But she didn't. And yet, Olivia is
full of want. She wants a bed that does not creak. A room without Anabelles or matrons
or ghouls. A window and a grassy view and air that does not taste of soot and a father who does
not die and a mother who does not leave and a future beyond the walls of Merilance.”

It took me a while to process this book. While I love the premise of it, the development and end
of the story were poorly thought out. I was left feeling very unsatisfied and… confused?

The characters of this book (even Olivia, who is the main character) did not develop as the story
progressed and neither did their relationship with each other. They just existed to help Olivia
meet her end goal - even if I am still quite unsure of what exactly that was - as did the ghouls,
who were just… there… and out of nowhere, when she found out why she saw them,
started acting protectively towards her.

The book feels incomplete. Shallow.

I have read a lot of reviews claiming this is a gothic thriller and although it does meet the
criteria, the pieces of the puzzle don’t fit together somehow. The puzzle was finished, just wonky, I guess, just as my feelings towards it are.

The final chapters were very underwhelming… and they shouldn’t have been… where did the
foreboding go? The horrific aspect of it? The thrill? We find out what is going on - kind of - but what now? Why them? How does the magic of it work? How is the paranormal so normal
when the world Olivia lives in is a regular one?

It pains me to give this book three stars because its writing is absolutely spot-on, this is a beautiful piece of writing, but I felt way too disconnected from it… I am curious to read other works from the author, though, so there’s that.

Gallant was beautifully written, but overall… lamentably forgettable.