The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Paperback – April 11, 2023

With her signature wit and deliciously wicked imagination, V.E. Schwab delivers an unforgettable story in The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. This book wrecked me in the best possible way.The premise alone is stunning: a young woman in 1714 makes a Faustian bargain to live forever, but in return, she is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. What follows is a haunting, beautiful exploration of art, identity, legacy, and loneliness. And the author executes it flawlessly.Addie is resilient, clever, and so achingly human. Watching her navigate the centuries. . .creating, surviving, yearning to be remembered, was both mesmerizing and gut-wrenching. You really have to watch your words in this book. Every deal, every detail, every moment of hope is so carefully crafted. And that deal with Luc? It’s the kind of dark temptation we’ve all wondered about–immortality, fame, purpose. What would you trade for it?The loneliness Addie endures hit so hard. It’s not just the passage of time, but it’s being surrounded by people and still being completely alone. And then... someone remembers her. Just like that, everything shifts.The prose is lyrical, the timeline weaving is done beautifully, and the emotional payoff is immense. It’s the kind of book that lingers in your soul long after the last page.

This book is the kernel of a fantastic idea that seems still unfinished, with the plot needing more editing. I gave it 4 stars because I still highly enjoyed the read, but at the end, I couldn't help feeling that it could have been so much more.The book starts with Addie, a young woman who in 1719 makes a deal with the devil to break free of her provincial life and live for as long as she wants. But then, once life gets hard, she rails against the deal she made, and how unfair it is, despite the fact that if she simply ran away from home, her life probably would have been much harder. The story of her early life presents the book with its first missed opportunity: focusing on the plight of women throughout the last three centuries, and how dramatically it has changed. Addie comments about how hard it is to be an independent woman in the world she was born in, but the book never goes back to that line of thought, never completes it, never demonstrates how much easier it is three centuries later, or perhaps how much harder it is in other ways.Due to the fact that no one can remember Addie, a small inconvenience gets introduced to the plot: it is very difficult to build other main characters that touch her life and move the story forward. That leaves us with two characters: Henry, and the devil. The more we encounter the devil in the book, the less believable he seems (and yes, even in a completely imaginary fantasy world, all characters need to be believable to the reader). He seems to take on a more and more human shape, with magical powers to boot. While he is a thrilling and well-written character, the plot would have been better off without him. Addie's plight, without encountering the devil again at all after that first night, would have been that much more terrible and oppressive, and the meeting of Henry, the one who remembers, that much more important and dramatic.The author clearly loves art, and has been a student of Western history. But she seems to me to have grabbed a bit too much to chew, and so instead of thoroughly developing a plot that stays in a time and a place, she throws photographs at us: Addie now, Addie 50 years later, Addie 150 years later. Yet, Addie herself says that history is not photographs. One cannot put a girl in the 17th century and then just whisk her away to Florence when the revolution is just getting started! What I really wanted to see in this book is something a bit more like Daniel Defoe's writing, in the spirit of Moll Flanders.Addie seems to be a bit too perfect for her own good: she is always a victim, always a heroine, and has no faults. On top of that, she also casually picks up 8+ languages, piano study, and Western art appreciation. She sometimes seems to me to be the conjured up image of a perfect girl someone else always wanted to be, as opposed to a fully formed character that is complex and mesmerizing. Also missing is any mention of travels outside of Europe: has Addie gone anywhere else, or is she stuck in the Western Canon? The world is bigger than that, and has many more colors. I would have been ok with Addie staying in Europe, if the author didn't place Addie in the middle of such a broad historical sweep. Although Addie has seen world wars and revolutions, if she's never been to Asia - to Africa - to the Middle East - she has still seen very little, and knows very little.The parts that touched me most about the book are the parts that described her early childhood, and her early years of escape. Her repeated returns to Villon and the pain that accompanies them ring true, and raw, and representative of the experience of many who've been uprooted from their homes, whether by choice or not. The passage of time, and what it does to a place and to the memory of a place, touched me deeply.The book seems like it's in the middle of being written. It needs to lose a few major plot points, and stay focused, instead of pan out so much. I would have loved it so much more if it became a series of books that took us to the 21st century much, much later than it did.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙄𝙣𝙫𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙇𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝘼𝙙𝙙𝙞𝙚 𝙇𝙖𝙍𝙪𝙚 is a story that I promise not to forget. V.E. Schwab weaves a breathtaking, melancholy tale of love, identity, and the desperate desire to leave a mark on the world. Addie’s journey—her triumphs, her loneliness, her defiance—is achingly human, making every moment spent in her world feel both fleeting and infinite.The novel reminds us of the fragile, ephemeral nature of life, the power of art and memory, and the devastating truth that 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦. Schwab’s prose is lyrical and immersive, her characters heartbreakingly real, and the emotions this book evokes will linger long after the final page.This isn’t just a book—it’s an experience. One that will slip into your soul like a whispered secret and stay there forever. Absolutely a 5-star read.