This is the type of book that makes me love reading. I did not want to stop reading this story but the short chapters made it easy to set down and take a break because...ya know, life. ⁠
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Oh Addie. Don’t you know when you make a deal with the devil to be very very specific in your wants and offerings? I loved learning and failing alongside Addie through her 3 centuries of life. What can she get away with? What are the parameters of her new life? And most importantly, what is love worth? Oh Addie, you will live in my heart forever.

All Addie LaRue wants is to be free to live her life on her own terms. Born in 1691 France, all anyone expects from her is marriage and childbearing, but Addie wants more. After making a deal with the Gods who come out after darkness, Addie finds that she has the freedom she prayed for, but at a cost: no one will ever remember her. Until one day, centuries later, when someone finally does.

This book was magical. Schwab tells such a visual and artful story of Addie's life, the ups and downs, joys and tragedy. I loved the way Schwab writes Addie and Henry, and the side characters are so well rounded. The short chapters make it easy to just keep reading and reading and reading.

Loved it. Would recommend it for a book group read as it could invoke some interesting discussions on life choices, memory, and ethics just to name a few. Plus the characters are endearing, even the bad guy (after a while).

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is 100% my favorite book by V.E. Schwab. Every single word, sentence, paragraph, and chapter of this book is filled with so much emotion, so much heartbreak and love and a timeless feel for a timeless girl. It's no surprise to me that I have 4 different editions pre-ordered, and it doesn't feel like enough.

I have recommended Addie LaRue to anyone and everyone that will listen. It is one of my top reads of 2020 and of all time, and I know it will renain that way.

This is the newest release by Victoria Schwab, an American author best known for her "Shades of Magic" series. This new story is about Addie who in 1714 is a 23 year old young woman living in a small village in France, about to be married against her will. She flees and ends up making a deal with the devil for her freedom in exchange for her soul when she has had enough of life. Unfortunately her deal had a loophole and she is now doomed to live her life being forgotten by everyone she meets as soon as she leaves their sight. The story follows her across the centuries surviving but lonely until in 2014 a young man she meets in a bookstore while stealing a book, remembers her when she returns a few day later. This is a fabulous Faustian tale that encompasses historical fiction, fantasy and romance. It is a wonderful recommendation for customers. I loved it.

This is a hard one to write. The easy part is to start off by saying thank you, to NetGalley and Tor/ Macmillan, and to Ms. Schwab, for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of the title. An honest review was requested but not technically required.

I had high, high, hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh hopes for this. Ms. Schwab is a terrific author and by and large I have vastly enjoyed the things she's written. I do think that this is, technically speaking, her best book yet. Her writing is so lyrical and evocative it's practically poetry. Her characters are multidimensional and well constructed. And yet, and yet.

I guess it comes down to personal preference in the end. I enjoy fantasy, and Ms. Schwab is certainly a master. This... veered away from fantasy. Sure, it has an immortal woman who made a deal with - if not the devil, then the darkness? - but it read more like straight fiction, which is not what I came for. It certainly had a modern feel, with people "feeing seen" [I dislike that phrase for some reason] and the (correctly) casual acceptance of the gender and sexual spectrum. It was deep and even sort of meta. Overwhelmingly, it had a French flavor, in the classically stereotypical bittersweet simultaneous "je repars à zero" and "non, je ne regrette rien" kind of way, which is appropriate considering Addie's provenance and history. It was a beautiful book. It just wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

I thought it was going to be a fantasy in which Adeline fell, over the course of tumultuous exchanges and many free spirited years, in love with the darkness.

It was not.

Maybe it was a combination of getting my hopes up too high and having something else in mind? Like being so so so so so excited to see Avengers Endgame only to find you've been taken to the theater to see Wonder Woman instead. It's not that Wonder Woman is a bad movie, or even that it's so very different in genre, and in fact I enjoyed Wonder Woman a lot. It just isn't what I was in the mood for.

After all, I gave Invisible Life 4 stars. It's not a bad book; quite the opposite, it was beautifully written, moving, and entertaining, and I'm sure will be very popular. It's definitely a master work from Ms. Schwab, who keeps improving with every new title. I have to be honest and acknowledge how very good it was.

I just thought this was going to be my very favorite new book of the year, is all. It's up there, I certainly enjoyed it, but I don't think it topped A Deadly Education.

The nitty-gritty: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is pure magic, a grand yet intimate and emotional tale of art, love and memories, told as only V.E. Schwab can tell it.

A new V.E. Schwab book is always cause for celebration, but this time the celebration is well earned. This might be my favorite of her books to date, although I still have a special place in my heart for Vicious. I believe I read somewhere that Schwab has been working on Addie LaRue for the past ten years, and it shows. This is the author at the top of her game, and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is her masterpiece. This book is so carefully constructed, each theme developed to perfection, each piece of the puzzle placed just so, and it all adds up to a spectacular reading experience.

The story begins in 1714 in the small village of Villon-sur-Sarthe in France. Adeline LaRue is twenty-three and it’s the night before her wedding, a wedding she’s being forced into by her family. Addie can clearly see the future she’ll have once married: a life of drudgery, taking care of babies and a husband she doesn’t love, and worst of all, stuck in Villon for the rest of her life. She wants nothing to do with any of that, and so she calls upon a demon in order to strike a deal: she agrees to offer up her soul if she can live a life of freedom. The demon, who we come to know as Luc later in the story, agrees to the deal, but he adds a cruel twist: Addie will be immortal and cannot die, but everyone she meets will forget who she is once they turn away from her.

We then jump ahead to the present day, New York City 2014. Addie has lived her strange life for three hundred years and has managed to be happy, despite the challenges she faces. One day she stumbles upon a hidden bookstore called The Last Word, and when she tries to steal a copy of The Odyssey—because that is the only way she can acquire things, by stealing—a young man named Henry Strauss catches her in the act. Addie talks her way out of it and Henry ends up letting her take the book home, but when she returns the next day to give it back, she’s shocked to discover that Henry actually remembers her from the day before. Henry and Addie are immediately drawn to each other and begin a relationship, but Addie knows her secret is bound to get out eventually. And of course, once Henry discovers the truth, Addie finds out that he has one of his own.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is crafted. Not only is Schwab’s prose simply glorious, but she’s meticulously created a work of art. The story jumps back and forth from the present to the past, covering a span of three hundred years, as Addie gradually learns the ins and outs of her “curse,” as she refers to it, figuring out what she can and can’t do. Often multiple timeline stories can be confusing, but Schwab never once lost me, and in fact, these time jumps added so much to the story. And speaking of art, one of Schwab’s overarching themes is that of art and how it immortalizes life. Because of her curse, Addie can’t leave a mark at all: she isn’t able to hold a pen and write, she can’t draw or appear in photographs, she can’t even tell her story out loud to someone else. But over the years, she has some remarkable moments with artists who are able to at least capture her essence on paper. In that way, she has left her mark on the world, and in doing so she feels as if she’s found a way to cheat Luc and the curse.

Addie is a marvelous character, and I loved the way she grew over time. Her curse is a double edged sword—she gets to live forever and experience the history of the world, but she’s also extremely lonely and unable to form any lasting personal bonds. It doesn’t take long to discover that being invisible means she can’t find a permanent home or buy food or clothing, and so she struggles in the beginning to survive, which is ironic since she can’t die. But little by little, Addie finds ways to make her odd life work, and she flourishes. I loved her tenacity and drive to live life to its fullest, even with the restrictions that the curse has put on her. And when Luc appears each year on the anniversary of the deal and tries to bully Addie into giving up her soul, she resists each time.

Some of my favorite parts of the story were the snapshots of the different times in history. Addie lives through wars, plagues, and inventions. She sees opera for the first time, flees Paris during the war, meets famous writers and artists and much more. Schwab takes full advantage of those three hundred years and gives us an ambitious story that spans history, all with one smart and resilient girl as witness. People may not remember Addie, but Addie never forgets anything, and this dichotomy was one reason I loved this book so much. 

And while I loved Henry and his budding relationship with Addie, it was Luc who ended up seducing me. Make no mistake, Luc is the devil himself (and in fact we get to witness him steal a soul) and he’s only out for one thing: to take the soul he’s been promised. But I loved the subtle shift in his personality over time, and he ended up really surprising me. Addie and Luc have a constant dance they do when they are together, a competition of sorts to see who will win, and these moments are full of thrilling tension.

And oh the emotions! Schwab knows how to tug on your heartstrings, and these emotional moments seemed to pop up when I was least expecting them. Addie returns to her hometown in France many years after leaving, only to find that nothing is the same. Addie sees herself in a famous painting and is thrilled to discover in some small way, she’s left a piece of herself behind. And always, there is the sadness that comes each time a lover or friend forgets who she is, the one part of her curse she can’t seem to rise above.

It may sound corny, but Schwab has cast a spell with this book, and I almost wish I could experience reading it again for the first time. Whether or not you are a fan of her other books, I highly recommend you give Addie LaRue a try. You won’t regret it.

Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.

4.5 stars. I confess - I may have had way too high expectations going into this one. Don't get me wrong - it was great! I very much enjoyed reading it and it's not a story I will be forgetting any time soon. But it just wasn't a full 5 star read for me.

This is a Faustian story about a woman who is cursed to be immortal but forgotten by everyone she meets (basically the second she is out of their sight, including if they fall asleep), after she makes a deal with an ancient god who she names Lucifer. The story goes back and forth between the late 17th century moving toward the present, and the "present" (2014) when she meets someone who - for the first time - remembers her, the plotlines meeting together at the end.

It had Hollywood feels akin to Benjamin Button and also the magic meeting by chance of The Golem and the Jinni . I adored the relationship between Addie and Luc. Honestly though, the absolute best romance of this book was the language. Ah, stars, the language! It was so beautiful that there were multiple times I had to stop reading because I was arrested by a sentence and just had to ponder it for a while. I have a ridiculous amount of highlights for this book. It's one of those stories that has turns of phrase and prose that reminds you of why you fell in love with the written word in the first place. For the language, the writing? 5 stars.

I have very complicated feelings about the ending and need my buddy reader to finish this asap so we can discuss it.

Thank you Edelweiss and Tor for the ARC!

My words will never do justice for the girl who is always forgotten but I can never forget! This book is beautiful, captivating, heartbreaking, glorious! My emotions were rolling waves that soared and crashed as I read page after page of V.E.'s gorgeous writing. After 10 pages I was swept away at the beauty of her words. Swept on a journey through history, art, love, longing, memory, and remembrance. This book is a celebration of life even in its moments of despair! I have never read anything like Addie and I doubt I ever will! I will remember you, Addie!

Her best book yet. This was absolutely fantastic and my favorite book ever.

Right from the start, the story is engaging, thought provoking, and full of twists and turns.

Next, the characters are absolutely stunning. I loved every single one of them. They are well developed, lovable, and I literally want to be friends with them.

Lastly, the writing is vivid, beautiful, and I was never confused.

I’d recommend this book to everyone. Though it was fantasy elements, I’d still recommend this one to fans of contemporary and literary fiction.

Review for The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

Thank you so much to Tor for sending me a NetGalley e-ARC of this to read and review! All opinions are my own.

Trigger Warnings (TW): Depictions of someone with depression, assault, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts.

Summary:
“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.”


My Thoughts

“What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?”

There are only so many ways for me to express the fact that I truly feel like this was the story that Schwab was meant to tell.

We start this book, and lifetime, with Addie, a young girl born in the small French town, Villon, who only wants to travel and explore the world, and be free.
When she is told to marry, to settle down, to be stagnant in her hometown, this is a thought she cannot bear.
So what can one do but make a deal with a devil?

This leads her, in the middle of the night, in agony, to seek out some way to get out, to live for herself and to be free. She and Luc strike a deal.

”Don’t you remember, she told him then, when you were nothing but shadow and smoke? Darling, he’d said in his soft, rich way, I was the night itself.”

This is where the trouble begins. Addie will live forever, and the tradeoff is that nobody will ever remember her. Not her parents, not anyone that she has known her whole life. The deal that she makes throws her life upside down, so she flees her hometown in search of somewhere to belong.

I’m going to let everyone else enjoy the rest from here, and not go into spoiler territory. I received this ARC, screamed and cried with joy, and then read it until it was far past dark. Then I reread it in order to catch all of the perfectly interwoven details that I’d missed the first time around.

There are some amazing characters in here, and while we do mostly follow Addie, we do meet a boy named Henry, who is the only person who has ever remembered Addie.

“I remember you.” Three words, large enough to tip the world. I remember you.

Henry struggles with depression, and as someone who also struggles with depression, there were many points in this story where I felt very seen. Everyone’s mental health struggles are their own, so I do not speak for everyone who deals with depression.

There is also queer rep, Addie has relationships with both men and women over time, as does Henry, though I believe he might be pansexual (but I’m not 100% sure).

I think that once you have read this through the first time, that on the second go round you catch so many hints and things you wouldn’t have even second guessed were important upon a first read.
This is where Schwab’s brilliance really comes to light in my opinion.
I can go on and on about representation and the huge character study that this book is, but every time I am able to read something new from Schwab, it’s the little things that are so subtly woven into the story that gets me to fall in love with it.
The amount of detail and care, and pure love that she puts into her work is what has kept me consistently reading and enjoying her work.


Overall (TLDR)
If you are ready to take your time, and really sink into this book, come to love these characters and their struggles, you will enjoy this. It will sucker punch you in the chest, but you’ll be left wanting to read it again. Once you’re done crying.

Schwab knocks it out of the park with her prose, her character work, and all of the stunning small details that are interwoven so brilliantly. I could quote the lyrical prose, and fill an entire notebook with memorable quotes, but this is a story I want every single person to experience in their own way. I think that this entire book is a pure work of art, and Addie LaRue is someone you will never forget.

All quotes are taken from an ARC and are subject to change upon publication

Even when I doubt her, Victoria Schwab always manages to get me in the end. This one took me a bit to get into; I failed to connect with Addie right away, even as I sympathized with her. But when the story hits its stride (around the time Henry makes his first appearance), it doesn't let up. The plot is light and loose, which fits the Faustian setup. But the characters and their relationships are so full of life you can't look away. I can't wait to see this story on the screen.

THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE by V. E. Schwab (Tor, ISBN 978-0-
765-38756-1) is invisible because Addie has sold her soul for
freedom. But she discovers to her dismay that this freedom seems
to be more "freedom from" than "freedom to"--she leaves no trace
behind, not even memory.

The basic idea seems to be the same as a novel (novella? I seem to
think it was half of an Ace Double) in which the main character is
so non-descript that people simply don't see him. If he grabs
someone by the arm, they will see his hand and follow his arm up to
where they do see him, but as soon as he lets go, he fades from
their sight (and memory). (I don't think it is A GIFT FROM EARTH
by Larry Niven, which has a very similar idea.) Addie has to learn
to negotiate her way through life with this handicap, so though the
book is fantasy, it also has some of the feel of science fiction,
taking one premise and then examining all the ramifications of it.
As such, it has appeal for both fantasy and science fiction fans.

This beautiful book tells the story of a young woman's evolution throughout her first 300 years of immortality, where she can't make a mark on the world or be remembered by others. This would have been the perfect opportunity for a different author to place Addie into historical high-points - a la Forrest Gump - but this isn't that kind of book, thankfully. Instead, Addie experiences the times she lives in as a real person might and though she influences artists who become significant in the universe of the book, it never feels like a cute time-travel-type gimmick. Her love story with the one person who can remember her is emotional and passionate, but the almost pragmatic Addie of the book's ending was a surprise and an exciting revelation.

I don't even know where to begin with this beautiful book! I don't think I have the right words to do it justice because V.E. Schwab writes with such poetry and vividness. I bow down to her.

The plot is so different and takes you to so many places seamlessly. Addie is filled with contradictions and she is so incomparable to any other character I have read. Her lust for life and freedom delivers us into a world that changes and we follow along. Henry, oh Henry, my heart was full when they were together. Luc, oh Luc, I can understand being swept up in the mystery but boy, did I want to see him disappear so many times throughout the story. Everything comes with a price, especially your soul, and yes, there were tears but there was also a deep satisfaction in how things ended. (for now)

My daughter is a big fan and I had never read any of her books before but I definitely will be. She has a way with her descriptions that sweeps you up like a tornado and brings you back down with an understanding that you might not have had before.

Thanks to Netgalley and Tor/Forge for an advance copy of this fantastic book.

A bargain sought in youth only to regret ? Thus is the option of Addie who comes to understand only to well bargains made with a devils twist will take many lifetimes to regret. It is the character and circumstances that carve out the world she lives in and comes to in the end embrace. Only to have to see them gone and her starting over again and again.

Epic love story or epic battle of wills?
An interesting story of the idea of immortality and how humans leave their mark in the world.

This might be in my top 10 for the year. I loved Addie's journey. I love the setting and how deeply I felt for her. It felt just right for fall with the dark and the magic and the relationships that she creatively built over time. This story is just perfect for a reader who likes a big story with twists and turns but also needs to feel for the characters.

I didn’t want this book to end. Both the characters and ideas presented, while not totally original, were given a new and fresh and compelling presence. I so admired Addy who, finding herself in the loneliest and most desperate situation, persevered and thrived through cleverness, resourcefulness, strength and determination—while also never losing a sense of wonder and delight. Over the course of 300 years, Addy continues to find opportunities to learn and delight in finding something new. “Cursed” with being forgettable, Addy finds ways to leave her mark on the world over and over, having embraced the realization that “ideas are wilder than memories.” The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue will offer book clubs so many things to ponder and discuss. And I love the constellation of freckles the identifies Addy throughout the ages and its clever use on the book cover. All in all, a story to be savored and shared!

Honestly, I am not fully ready to review this book yet because I am so blown away by the entirety of it. It was so unlike anything else I have read and completely memorable. All of that being said, this book was a slow burn throughout which I enjoyed the journey and the destination. You can just feel the love and care that went into every sentence in this book and the love and suffering that Addie goes through is resonant.

I will be coming back to write more of a review once my heart calms down but for now, I am rocked to my core.