Gallant, a review

Gallant by V.E. Schwab was an Illumicrate book box pick for March and so I read it along with the Discord buddy read in April. The Illumicrate edition of this is absolutely *stunning*, just gotta get that out there.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find the book completely stunning. Now don’t get me wrong, the writing was absolutely gorgeous and it was a fun read. I personally didn’t have many pacing issues and I loved learning about this world Schwab created. Our orphaned main character has mutism, and communicates through sign language. As a non HOH or Deaf person I thought this was done well, but of course please go and find own voices reviewers for an actual accurate review.

The utilisation of a shadow world, one that’s the dark version of our world, is one that I love. And I’m always down for any books about death. However, this book really seemed to be lacking something. There was a significant lack of depth throughout the book. We barely learn about the orphanage and who Olivia was before she leaves the orphanage and meets the family she’s never known. We barely learn anything about said family, meaning that when there is risk abound, well we care significantly less than we should. We also barely learn about this “dark” world and the true aims of those who reside there. And her parents. We learn a fair bit about Olivia’s mum, although it also somehow doesn’t feel like a lot. But we specifically do not learn about her dad. And that leads me onto my next point.

This basically felt like a prequel book. It’s a nice novella, a prequel to a bigger series where we’ve had time to develop further at least some of these characters. This is just backstory, extra information to add to the main storytelling arc. Not a book on it’s own. Additionally the ending was far too quick. It’s like someone gave Schwab a page limit and she had to try and squeeeeze everything in there, and unfortunately she didn’t hit the mark.

On CAWPILE I rated this: Characters: 7, Atmosphere: 7, Writing: 8, Plot: 6, Intrigue: 8, Logic: 5, Enjoyment: 7, with a score of 6.86 and a 3.5* rating.

I will 100% pick up any other books that Schwab could possibly publish in a Gallant series, because I think it has so much potential. But unfortunately, as it is, unless you’re a die hard Schwab fan this one just isn’t worth the hype. (imo, obvs). Let me know, if you’ve read this, what you thought! Do you totally disagree with me and think this is the best book ever written? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

April Reading Wrap Up

Well April was a month, but despite everything going on I was still able to get through a fair few books! So let’s go through them in chronological order.

First up, a book I won’t name but that gives me 287 pages towards my page count for the month.

Next I finished my reread for The Skulduggery Pleasant Grimoire by Derek Landy. This does unfortunately have a few publishing issues and innacuracies, but overall it’s incredibly enjoyable and I gave it 4*

Then I read Until the End by Derek Landy and OMG!!!! Okay to be realistic, this is most likely actually a 4* read. But because it’s the last book in phase 2? Well it gets a 5* for now 😂

Beowulf by Maria Davana Headly is a translation of an Old English epic poem into modern English, and also as a feminist translation. Fucking fantastic, I can totally see why this was told around the camp fires! 3.5* on CAWPILE but I think that will be going up.

Then I bought a secondhand book and read it straight away, From Ostia to Alexandria with Flavia Gemina by Caroline Lawrence. It had one specific issue with language, but overall very interesting and a fun companion non-fiction to the middle grade series! 3*

The Book of Mirrors by E.O. Chirovici was lent to me back in 2016 by one of my best friends… yeah I finally read it. And it was… fine. How disappointing! A story about the death of a famous professor many years prior. 2.5*

Going with a translated classic, from Swedish, The Brothers Lionheart is an absolutely gorgeous children’s book about brothers love that is officially one of my favourites! 4*s and likely to go up!

My non-fiction of the month was Natives by Akala and this was a fantastic discussion on the intersectionality of race and class in the UK. It certainly gave me a lot to research, which I love! 4.5*s!

An audiobook for the month, I went with Comfort Me With Apples which is a short horror novel (novella?) that delves into feminist topics and Adam and Eve. Fantastic and I want to read more like it! 4*

Gallant by V.E. Schwab was a little bit of a let down, but a fantastic concept of a book. An orphan reunited with a family that has to guard the divide between our world and the shadow world of death. It wasn’t in depth enough for me, 3.5*

The Count of Monte Cristo was finally finished this month!!! I’ve not written my review up yet (not even going to lie, it’s fully because it intimidates me) so keep an eye out for that next week, hopefully Monday, but it was a fantastic read and I gave it 4*s!

Second to last, The Book Jumper, this also doesn’t have a review just yet (because chronological order controls my life) but I really enjoyed it. Very much the same vibes as The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. I felt that the ending wrapped up too quickly and that’s the only thing that dropped it down to a 4*

The Embroidered Book (another one that will have it’s full review up next week) is a chunker of a book that I was determined I would finish by the end of the month. On my tbr from the Goldsboro book box, this historical fiction COMPLETELY surprised me and I gave it 5*! 170s Europe with incredibly accuracy? Sign me up!

And that was everything I managed to read in April! I didn’t do balancing the books this month, because of everything going on. But I started with 118 books on my tbr and I finished with 120. No penalty but I do have more of a challenge in May! And I read 4887 pages last month. Impressive! And Until the End, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Embroidered Book definitely contributed to that.

What is your favourite book from last month? I have some amazing books but The Embroidered Book has *stuck* in my mind ever since I read it!

My April TBR Hopefuls, 2022!

It’s that time of the month again! I’m picking out all the books I wanna read in the next month and this time round I’m using Olivia-Savannah’s All The World’s A Page readathon for the prompts!

I’ve linked Olivia’s video here which tells you more about the prompts and the readathon, please do go check her out if you haven’t already because she’s a wonderful human.

Now I’m going to delve into the books! This time round? It’s just gunna be a list, I hope you don’t mind. I’ve got my tbr video going up in an hour on my YouTube channel if you do want more details on the books.

I want to listen to Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M Valente which I heard about from Kayla from BooksAndLala reading it a while back now. It’s supposed to have Stepford Wives vibes.

The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren was sent to me by the wonderful Veronica’s Shelf and I’m excited for this short Swedish classic.

One I was sent by Caitlyn from Mad Cheshire Rabbit for this Christmas past is Natives by Akala, I’ve been enjoying reading at least one non-fiction each month so far and I want to continue that.

The lovely Kari-ng for Books sent me The Book Jumper by Mechthild Gläser and I’m 100% here for diving into books in a setting mixed between Germany and Scotland (and it’s translated from German too).

Now that I’m up to date in the Skulduggery Pleasant series, I want to read the Grimoire by Derek Landy before I read the final novel!

And on that note, Until the End by Derek Landy, the last SP novel, is released on the 14th of April and you best believe I’ve got it pre-ordered! So of course I’ll be reading that!

The Illumicrate read for April is Gallant by V.E. Schwab and I’m looking forward to trying out some more from this author after reading a book from her in March.

Then a book that I’ve put on my tbr but I won’t be mad if I can’t get to it? Beowulf translated by Maria Dahvana Headley. It doesn’t fit any of the prompts for All The World’s A Page (that I’ve checked) but Kar-ing for Books gifted this to me recently and I’m just super excited for this feminist re-translation of the epic!

And then finally, I pulled a book out of my tbr jar in my YouTube video. So I need to read that too!

A fair few books, but at the same time they really aren’t that big. I think the biggest are the Skulduggery Pleasant books, and we all know I’ll fly through those. What are you wanting to read this month???