The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
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A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.
France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.
But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a book about what it means to be alive. I think a lot of people reading this book are going to relate heavily to Addie, despite her supernatural intervention. Is just existing a life, and do you need to make a mark on the world in order to say you’ve lived life to the fullest? In a world where so many of us feel inisgnificant, this brings to life all the things we do every single day which matter.
“What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?”
Addie LaRue is the central figure in this character driven book, alongside Henry as the secondary POV. It’s not your usual action-packed fantasy novel, but it makes up for it with the writing style keeping you wanting to know more about their lives.
An issue I had about Addie is I just kept thinking of Adaline from The Age of Adaline, and so Addie was Blake Lively with seven freckles across her face. However in terms of personality, I enjoyed her pure stubborness to survive and live. At one point she chooses to continue living out of pure spite and this felt relatable and made the character that couldn’t possibly be real feel real.
I saw a lot of people describe this book as a love story with the devil, and I’m still confused why. Addie makes a deal with the devil which is cleverly worded for her to get to “live” until she doens’t want to anymore and this gives her immortality and the cost of her being forgettable, unable to make a mark, basically a ghost. Then Addie and the Devil play a game of chess and patience as the devil wants her soul and Addie wants to be free. The overall tone of the book is that they’re opposing forces, who have had similar situations, experiences and choices – but they are ultimately terrible and toxic for one another.
The actual love story is between Addie and Henry, and from someone who doesn’t love reading about relationships I was truly rooting for them. I think they (rightly) made clear the flaws each of them had, but they didn’t force either to change but both chose to become better for the other. Whilst Henry was a part of his and Addie’s character arc, I wish he’d had more to do with Luc and how that story evolved. He has a couple of interactions but is otherwise sidelined slightly at the end in order to wrap up the centuries old game they’ve been playing.
The magic in the book is not a huge part of the book, with the devil figure being a lot more mysterious and the complexity of his character was the main arc for him. However, I did keep thinking about how the magic works for Addie as if I was in her situation I would test it. What are the boundaries for people forgetting Addie? Is it they forget as soon as they can’t see her anymore including out of the corner of her eye? There’s characters who must surely turn their back to her whilst staying in the same room. But then is it going through a doorway? A certain amount of seconds?
There’s a historical aspect as Addie has lived through multiple huge world events, but also met some of the greatest minds and creatives. However, it is very western orientated with sticking to Europe and then America which I think was a missed opportunity. It would have been nice to see Schwab push Addie through change due to the world around her and not just from her experience with Henry and Luc.
Every so often we’d see a piece of art in the book and a huge theme is the inspiration behind artwork, including the power of an idea. I really loved the inclusion of different forms of art, from music, painting, writing and others, we see how each of them have built a mark on the world through their pieces.
Positives of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
- Interesting story concept, kept you wanting to find out more
- Realistic portrayals of a relationship
Negatives of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
- Can be hard to get into if you’re not a reader of character-driven stories
- Very Eurocentric for both characters and locations.
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