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So first of all, I’m going to start with an apology. Because I have absolutely no bloody idea how I’m going to write a review of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue that even halfway does it justice, let alone make any sense.
This is hands down one of the best books I’ve ever read. I knew I would love it, being a fan of V. E. Schwab already, but from the story, to the characters, the writing style to the prose, the dialogue to the plot twists, it just… it was everything. Anyway, let’s get into my spoiler free (attempted) review of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab.
“What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?”
Publisher: Titan Books
Length: 560 pages
Source: Netgalley via the publisher
Link: Waterstones
Synopsis
When Addie LaRue makes a pact with the devil, she trades her soul for immortality. But there’s always a price – the devil takes away her place in the world, cursing her to be forgotten by everyone.
Addie flees her tiny home town in 18th-Century France, beginning a journey that takes her across the world, learning to live a life where no one remembers her and everything she owns is lost and broken. Existing only as a muse for artists throughout history, she learns to fall in love anew every single day.
Her only companion on this journey is her dark devil with hypnotic green eyes, who visits her each year on the anniversary of their deal. Alone in the world, Addie has no choice but to confront him, to understand him, maybe to beat him.
Until one day, in a second hand bookshop in Manhattan, Addie meets someone who remembers her. Suddenly thrust back into a real, normal life, Addie realises she can’t escape her fate forever.
Content warnings: payment for sex, drug abuse, starvation, alcohol as a coping mechanism, depression, attempted suicide, violence
In a few words:
We follow the life of a young woman spanning three hundred years, after she makes a deal with the devil for more time. With the blessing comes the curse that nobody will remember her.
My Thoughts
Firstly, this is not the kind of story you may have come to expect from V. It is much slower paced, with far less fantastical elements, though not completely free of them of course. While there is a conflict and resolution, the majority of the story is simply following Addie through her life.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is told from multiple perspectives, which I didn’t actually expect initially but felt worked really well. The story also follows multiple timelines as we go back and forth from present day at the time of the story (2014) back to the 1700s when Addie first makes the deal. Personally I felt that this approach enriched the story, enabling us to view things three dimensionally and really go on this journey with her.
“Ideas are wilder than memories. And I can be wild. I can be stubborn as the weeds, and you will not root me out.”
Addie starts her life in the remote countryside of France, a young woman at the turn of a century that would bring about a development of technology and life. Not ready to live the life expected of her in this time, often finding herself compared to her more ‘traditional’ peers, Addie decides to pray to the Old Gods. Not realising that night had come, Addie unknowingly reaches a dark God, or, the “devil”.
There were moments of pure joy, but also there were moments of real heartbreak. There comes a point where Addie starts to realise the extent of her deal, when those she held close no longer recognise or remember her, and so she must start to navigate this new world and life as an invisible person. Because of the limitations this deal offers her, Addie has to do things to survive which really did hit me hard.
“Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives- or to find strength in a very long one.”
Having only ever ventured to another small town before, this new life bestowed upon Addie grants her the ability to experience everything she may want to. However, for the first large portion of the story, Addie remains in France itself. It was interesting to me to see the portrayal of a character who doesn’t want “The Big Adventure”, as has become commonplace in narratives today. As Sarah Maria Griffin, author of Other Words For Smoke and Spare and Found parts, said in a virtual interview with V, Addie is the “slowest and saddest time traveller“.
While V has discussed how she chose France and America due to familial ties, current and historic, I do think it’s fair to say that in her extended time Addie could have visited more distant places and learned about other cultures in some way, rather than remaining in largely white countries. It does tie in with how Addie just wants to live rather than explore, but I do think it is a valid point to make and agree with other reviewers who have also raised this.
I loved seeing her growth and development through the years, the workarounds she found and the tentative relationships she attempted to form. Despite understanding her limitations more, Addie of the 21st century, 300 years old and hardened almost by time, still doesn’t know everything and that was intriguing to me.
“Do not mistake this – any of it – for kindness, Adeline.” His eyes go bright with mischief. “I simply want to be the one who breaks you.”
The relationship between Addie and Luc, the “devil” who granted the deal was so complex and interesting. I loved seeing their dynamic shift and change as the story developed. He really was the pettiest, which to an extent I had to admire, but also I have a real bad habit of searching for redeeming qualities in evil characters. Tall, dark, handsome? Could I maybe forgive everything for just those three qualities? Am I really that shallow? I mean no, but they help.
Ahh Henry, probably my favourite character but one that I can’t speak too much about because he’s pretty integral to the story. A bookseller with a cat, I knew I would love him right away. But more than this, I related to Henry on so many levels. He felt as though he was living his life way behind all of his peers, saying that “everyone else is a now a mile down the road” and he’s “still trying to find it”. Yep, I feel that.
In a recent online book event, V describes how Henry is lost in all the ways she felt she would have been lost if she hadn’t found writing, which makes his character even more meaningful to me.
“Her grip tightens around his, and his tightens back, and they hold on until it hurts, as if any minute someone might try to pull them apart, as if the other might slip free, and disappear.”
While The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue very much revolves around the three characters of Addie, Henry and Luc, the characters that we meet along the way feel like fully fledged protagonists themselves, another example of V’s exceptional talent for writing. We may only see a snippet of these characters, Addie carries their memories with her forever, again contributing to the tangible feel of the story. While nobody can remember Addie, of course Addie always remembers them.
Another element of the characters that I loved was that so many, in fact more like the majority, of them were LGBTQ+. While I can’t comment on the accuracy, there is pan, gay, bisexual, lesbian and queer rep throughout, including our three main characters.
This book took so many twists and turns that I devoured the book in a short few days, and while it is a fairly long book (around 560 pages) I was gripped from beginning to end. A few friends had already read the book by the time I started reading it and I was just screaming at them in WhatsApp groups and they screamed back.
“He may be a sun, but she is a shining comet, dragging their focus like burning meteors in her wake.”
I realise from reading over my review that this sounds like a sad book. Well yes, there are a lot of deep moments and it definitely made me cry. But it’s so much MORE than that. It’s an exploration of life: the moments and memories that you leave behind, and the impact that you have on people no matter how small or insignificant you might think. Despite not necessarily being influenced massively by all types of art myself, I really appreciated how Addie found ways to be remembered through various mediums and how these were incorporated into the finished copies.
Honestly I fear I will never be able to write a concise and well-worded review of this book? I honestly believe that you should go into this book knowing almost nothing about the plot, and let V take you on a journey. Addie’s journey, and a journey for yourself too as you are opened up to this absolutely breathtaking piece of art.
“And this, he decides, is what a good-bye should be. Not a period, but an ellipsis, a statement trailing off, until someone is there to pick it up. It is a door left open. It is drifting off to sleep. And he tells himself he is not afraid.”
I am in absolute awe of V’s imagination and storytelling, I honestly don’t know what more I can say. Addie is packed with beautiful and lyrical writing, magical storytelling and such thorough and well done world building. I felt as though I was walking the world by Addie’s side.
Thank you so much for reading my review of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab. I know it’s been a long one but I still don’t feel like I’ve done nearly enough. It’s like nothing I have read before and I think it’ll be a long, long time until I read anything like it again. Please, please read this book. I mean, I had five or six pre orders at one point, I think that says it all!
Beth’s review / Lauren and Bec’s review / Kate’s review
I Remember Addie
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Lois @ Lois Reads Books says
I’ve heard an awful lot about this book. Maybe I need to pick it up soon! Great review!
Lois | https://loisreadsbooks.com
TeaPartyPrincess says
Incredible review!
I am still trying to put my thoughts into words. Spoiler alert; it’s not working.
Cora | https://www.teapartyprincess.co.uk/