*Thank you Tor Books for the eARC from Netgalley.

Addie LaRue makes a bargain with one of the Gods she has been warned to stay away from. When Addie is about to be forced into a life that she does not want, she knows that a sacrifice must be made in order for her to have freedom. What Addie does not know is that her new life will be a lonely life filled with struggle. Addie soon realizes how great the cost is as she gives up her name and presence since no one can remember her as soon as she is out of view.

This book is a masterpiece. I would describe this book as a story of life, journey, loss, and happiness with a small blend of fantastical elements. Do not expect a high fantasy story with a rush of action. This is not that. This is a story of a girl who must journey to find herself. Our main character goes through so much as she learns how hard it can be just to survive.

I loved reading about Addie’s journey. Addie is pretty naive in the beginning, but we see her go through so much as she evolves into the strong woman she is in current time. I loved being able to see both Addie’s past and present. I love how Victoria Schwab blends history into this story. Addie goes through so much and while struggle is definitely present we still see how much these events change her and how she still manages to leave her own presence behind, even if it is in small ways.

I loved all the characters and their roles in the story. It was so interesting to see Addie at different points in her life with different people.

This is a journey book at its finest. I loved the small blend of fantasy that is paired with the plot. This is a book about a young girl finding herself and living despite everything that tries to stop her.

I'm a big Schwab fan so went in with very high expectations and she blew it out of the park. I know Schwab fans will love this, but will also be an easy sell to people who haven't read her before.

V.E.Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a charming, thoughtful, sometimes-dark, sometimes moving, story about memory, love, rash decisions, female agency, stubborn defiance, mortality, resilience, and the power of art. In this time of Covid, a novel focused so much on the desire for human contact and fear of dying without leaving “a mark” is especially timely, though Addie LaRue would have been a highly recommended book in any other year.

Addie LaRue is a young woman in 18th Century France who yearns to be her own person, like the old woman outside town, Estele, “who belongs to everyone, and no one, and herself” and who is said by her mother to be bound for hell and by her father to be mad. But Addie wants nothing so much as Estele’s kind of freedom and wisdom, as opposed to her mother’s attempts to make her more like “Isabelle Therault, sweet and kind and utterly incurious, content to keep her eyes down upon her knitting instead of looking up at clouds, instead of wondering what’s around the bend, over the hills.”

This being 18th Century France, though, what Addie wants is of little account, as when she turns 23, she is “gifted like a prize sow to a man she does not love, or want, or even know.” Nor is there anyone she can turn to for help: “Her mother said it was duty. Her father said it was mercy . . . Estele said nothing, because she knew it wasn’t fair. Knew this was the risk of being a woman.”

But on the night of her wedding, when “the church bell tolls the same low tone it calls at funerals,” Addie does find, if not an ally, someone who can at least get her out of this trap. One of what Estele calls the old gods, though she’d always warned Addie against those who answered “after dark.” Desperate times call for desperate measures, though, and so Addie makes her wish: “I do not want to belong to someone else . . . I want to be free … to find my own way . . . I am so tired of not having choices . . . I want more time,” sealing the bargain with “You can have my soul when I don’t want it anymore.”

And so it is done. But as all the stories note, such bargains are never what they seem. The “freedom” the old god (called Luc by Addie) bestows on her is the curse of being forgotten by all she meets so that she moves through the world wholly untethered, leaving no mark — not in the minds of people she encounters, not on the physical world she moves through.
When she spills wine on a sofa, “She simply watches as the stain soaks in, and through, and disappears. As if it was never there. As if she was never there.” When she “upsets a tiny pot of varnish, spilling the precious oil onto her father’s notes . . . The parchment lies unmarked, untouched … Only her hands are stained.”

Addie LaRue is a dual-stranded novel, with alternating chapters following Addie either from the 1700s to the near-present or during a single year from 2013 to 2014. Across that span of centuries, Addie is at varying times enraptured and devastated by her vow. In the earliest stages, she is merely sussing out the actual logistics of things, as when she returns one day to her home: ““Fifty years and she is still learning the shape of her curse. She cannot make a thing, but she can use it. She cannot break a thing, but she can steal it. She cannot start a fire, but she can keep it going.” Later, she finds ways to make her gift/curse work for her (as when she “meets” a noblewoman multiple times, the woman always forgetting her, until Addie gets the meet right so that she is taken in by the lady).

She also figures out a loophole in the “can’t leave a mark” aspect — art. Something she realizes after being sketched: ““her image will still be there, charcoal on parchment, a palimpsest beneath a finished work. It will be real, and so will she.” This epiphany extends her long war with Luc, who had at first shown up once a year, sure she’d be ready to give up. But she has proven more stubbornly resilient than he’d expected: “I have found a way to leave a mark … You though you could erase me from this world, but you cannot.”

The biggest shift in her long life though, comes when she, for the first time ever, meets someone (Henry) who remembers her. This is the 2014 story, and I won’t say anything more about that save to say that Henry’s ability to remember her is a mystery ((eventually explained), a source of joy and tragedy, and a catalyst for change with regards to Addie’s view toward her life and her relationship with Luc.

Addie LaRue is a character and theme-driven book more than an action one. Suspense comes into play with regards to how Addie lives to the 2000s, why Henry can remember her, and whether or not Addie will give in to Luc (who can be both suavely charming and terrifying). But mostly it’s a character study of both Addie and Henry (though this is clearly mostly Addie’s story, as well as an exploration of a host of ideas.

The agency of women, as noted above, is one. Something we see not only in the 1700s, but later as well, as when Addie passes herself off as male, because “Freedom is a pair of trousers and a buttoned coat. A man’s tunic and a tricorne hat … The darkness claimed he’d given her freedom, but really, there is no such thing for a woman, not in a world where they are bound up inside their clothes, and sealed inside their homes, a world where only men are given leave to roam.” The concept is not always so bluntly stated though; even Addie’s curse, for example, can be read as a clear metaphor for how women (and we’re talking present-day as well) are often treated as “invisible,” are often “forgotten,” written out of history, denied recognition and honor (Rosalind Franklin, Lisa Meitner, and a dismayingly long list of others) or just ignored day-to-day. In the world of “Me Too,” Addie’s recognition of “how much the word [no] was worth” coming from a woman in 1714 is hardly an obsolete discovery. Even Addie’s recognition that “Being forgotten is a bit like going mad. You begin to wonder what is real, if you are real,” calls up stories like “The Yellow Wallpaper” or the classic madwoman-in-the-attic tales.

All this means that being basically immortal doesn’t lead to her galivanting around the world like a man would have been able to: “She watches these men and wonders anew at how open the world is to them, how easy the thresholds.” This also means this isn’t an historical fiction novel with Addie thrown into all the major events she lives through, a la Zellig (look him up youngsters).

The character study of Henry, meanwhile, is smaller, more on a human-scale as opposed to a societal or cosmic one (a battle between two immortals, one once-human and other that might be a god, the devil, or a demon). His is the anxiety of daily insecurity, of mounting anxiety that alone amongst those around you, you’re the one who doesn’t know what to do with life, what to be, what to become, what to choose (partly because to choose one is to reject the other options). It’s a wholly different kind of story than Addie’s, but it’s also admittedly a fine line to walk between a story that is relatable and empathy-evoking and one that is wince-inducing thanks to being about some whiny privileged-with-choices white boy. Luckily, Schwab is (mostly) able to sidestep the latter pitfalls. I also liked how Schwab not only presents his and Addie’s relationship as gentle and tender, but also gives us the a less “shiny” but more realistic aspect of having Addie trying to figure out if this is real love or just joy at finding someone whom she can actually interact with. Both of them, in fact, all three of them (Luc is a pleasant surprise in terms of his complexity) have to distinguish between what they really feel/ need and what they’re driven to think they feel/need by the crushing weight of loneliness (years’-old for Henry, centuries’-old for Addie, and millenniums’-worth for Luc).

The writing is another strong point of the book. I particularly loved Schwab’s use of metaphor, as when Addie thinks “she would rather be a tree . . . left to flourish wild instead of pruned . . . better that than firewood, cut down just to burn in someone else’s hearth.” A metaphor that Schwab returns to multiple times — when Addie is forced into marriage “Adeline was going to be a tree, and instead, people have come brandishing an axe” or when she herself plants a tree on Estele’s grave and then returns to see it change over the centuries. Another lovely metaphor occurs when Addie mourns that, “She never get closure, never gets to say good-byes — no periods, or exclamations, just a lifetime of ellipses. Everyone starts over, they get a blank page, but hers are full of text.”

That image is a constant refrain in the novel, as Schwab makes liberal use of the word “palimpsest” (a half-dozens times in the book), which refers to a page (or something similar) that has been erased to be used again, though one can still discern traces of the old text/drawing beneath the new. The connection is clear, and even when Schwab doesn’t use the word itself she uses similar imagery — the above referenced wine and ink, a description of her family’s home after a half-century as “New clothes laid over old bones,” or Addie’s feeling of, “The present folding on top of the past instead of erasing it, replacing it.”

The book is rife with these sort of motifs and allusions (I love motifs and allusions): references to doors being locked against her, to Dorian Gray, The Tempest, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, maybe The Seventh Seal, and others. Sometimes, I confess, I did wish Schwab had let the reader make some of the connections themselves or wasn’t quite so blunt in usage. The Dorian Gray line, for instance. Or when Addie visits a museum and thinks how she “feels like a museum sometimes, one only she can visit.” I already had made that recognition. And while I think Schwab gives us an absolutely killer ending (or near ending), I also wished she hadn’t gone down another path at the end, a sort of meta-fictional one that I won’t divulge save to say it involves a book. Finally, it’s possible the novel goes on a little long; I did feel a bit repetitive toward the end.

But those were relatively minor complaints. Overall, The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue was one of my favorite reads in the last half-year or so thanks to its characterization, themes, and craft, and I certainly highly recommend it.

It has been a long time since a book has made me cry this much. I give high praise to authors that are capable of making me shed a tear or two. I’m so glad Schwab decided to publish this after many years, and that I was able to read and fall in love with Addie LaRue.
This story of a girl who just wants to be known and remembered was tragical, poetic, and heartbreaking. It made me think about my own life and how short it truly is. This story had a poetic rhythm that made the story feel so real. I felt as though I was reading a eulogy of a girl once forget but then, after three hundred years, she is finally known.
Addie’s persistence to prove to Luc that her decision, while trying every minute of every day, wasn’t the wrong decision. She is a stubborn, strong woman that is capable of so much. Her relationship with Henry was so romantic and a fairytale-esque feeling about it, and she absolutely deserved it after the prior centuries she had to endure. She shows that if you just keep moving forward and never giving up, something good will come.
I think the ending was prefect. The perfect way to end a tragical tale. I remember you. I will always remember this book and Addie LaRue. Victoria Schwab, you have done it again. You have written a heartbreaking tale that no one will ever be able to forget.

Rating: 5 stars

My review can be found at https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/reviews/index.cfm/ref/pr266752

V.E. Schwab, author of children's books and the bestselling Shades of Magic series, returns with a magical realism novel geared toward adults.

In The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, readers follow the eponymous heroine through history, from rural 18th-century France to modern-day New York City. As a child, Addie is told by an older friend and mentor, "No matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark." When a crisis unfolds, though, she does the unthinkable and summons the type of being she was specifically told to avoid. She tells the creature (it's not clear if he's a demon, a god, or Satan himself), "I want a chance to live. I want to be free...I want more time," and with that, she sells her soul. Such Faustian bargains are never straightforward, and what Addie doesn't realize is that while the deal means she'll live precisely as long as she wants to, the flipside is that she will leave no mark of her passage, no proof she existed; she is cursed to be forgotten through all time. The story follows her escapades over the next 300 years until something remarkable happens in New York City in 2014: someone remembers her.

Addie's antagonist, whom she names Luc, always visits her on the anniversary of their agreement to ask if she's ready to give up her soul yet (at which point her body would die). Of course, the stubborn young woman refuses each time. The plot bounces back and forth between these visits and Addie's life in 2014. After the initial setup, the chapters occurring in the past illustrate how she learns to adapt to her curse while simultaneously exploiting its loopholes and actively seeking to thwart Luc's decree that she be completely forgotten. (She can't write a song, for example, but she can inspire others to do so, thereby leaving subtle traces of her presence throughout time.) Although she experiences history — she's in France for the Revolution and in Germany during World War II — the book contains surprisingly little historical background, with the focus of these chapters remaining solely on Addie, the curse and her love-hate relationship with Luc, the one "person" who knows her. As the plot progresses, the emphasis gradually shifts to the present and the mystery of why one person seems immune to the spell.

Everything about the novel is stellar, from the pacing to the characters to the exceptionally well-thought-out plot. Schwab's writing, too, is superb, convincingly reflecting the longing at her heroine's core while at the same time being beautifully descriptive. Indeed, I'm hard-pressed to come up with any flaws in this novel at all. At times reading like a fairy tale, at others like a romance, I enjoyed every minute; I still smile when I think about it — truly the sign of a great read.

At the risk of pigeon-holing The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue as "chick lit" (a label that belies the book's depth), I imagine the plot, with its strong heroine and romantic leaning, will appeal most to female readers. I wholeheartedly recommend it for a broad audience, though, as a feel-good and overall charming read. The novel would also be an excellent choice for book groups, as it raises many wonderful topics for discussion, such as the lengths one might go to for love or what one might do with eternal life.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a genre defying book that is beautifully written and completely captivating. There is a touch of fantasy and a touch of historical fiction, but I thought it read more like literary fiction than anything else. I heard that Schwab spend 9 years crafting this novel, and her time and effort are evident in the poetic writing and thoughtful construction of the story.

Addie LaRue, desperate to escape an arranged marriage, makes a deal with the darkness. The deal is he will help her escape her marriage and allow her to freely live forever. Unfortunately the deal comes with a curse: everyone who meets Addie will forget her as soon as she is out of their sight. After living under this deal/curse for nearly 300 years, Addie finally meets someone who could change everything.

The story jumps around between different time periods in Addie's life, and I thought this was an effective storytelling method. Especially as the novel nears the end, it is interesting how the story lines all start to come together. This is an epic novel that spans more than 300 years, and it is expertly crafted from start to finish. This story is just so original and unique, and I can't think of anything that I have ever read quite like it!

The only thing keeping me from giving it 5 stars is that the pacing is pretty slow. It's definitely a slow burn kind of story, which is not bad. But there were some moments in the second half where I grew restless and ready for something to happen already! Since no one remembers Addie, her life is very repetitive and the story had some moments where it felt repetitive.

But really I was just holding my breath through the whole book to see how it ended. It's such a big story in scope and ambition, how would it all wrap up by the end? I won't spoil the ending of course, but I was very satisfied with the end and thought the last 100 pages or so were the most compelling pages of the whole book.

This is an excellent story that is unique and well-written. I highly recommend it!

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Books for sending me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Wow! This book was something else! The world and writing are so gripping. The characters were so sad but poignant and I was unable to forget their stories. It was a slower read for me, I needed to take breaks to gather myself because it really hit my heart. I was constantly intrigued with both Addie and Henry's deal and how it all worked. I couldn't fathom living as Addie had lived and for 300 years. This was really an incredible piece and on another level with the heartfelt writing.

Well. I’m so happy that I waited to be in the right mood for this one, but regardless of when I read it, I know I would have loved it just as much.

After hearing Victoria talk about this book for so long, it’s amazing to get to read it and meet Addie. And she is just as fantastic as I expected. She’s crafty and filled with longing and it was so easy to root for her, no matter what she wanted.

The way the story unfolds in a flip flop of past and present is genius. I loved seeing Addie at the beginning of her life and how much she’s changed and adapted 300 years later. And yes, I’m being vague as hell, but I wouldn’t dream of spoiling this for anyone.

Overall, it was a story that was easy to devour and I can’t wait to read it again.

**Huge thanks to Tor Books for providing the arc free of charge**

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for sending me a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue was one of my most anticipated releases of the year and I’m SO excited to finally share my review! V.E. Schwab has done it again - are we even surprised?

To be completely honest, at first I didn’t find The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue as gripping as I found the Villains series or A Darker Shade of Magic. But, by the halfway point, I was fully engrossed in the story and I’m STILL reeling from the ending (it was satisfying in the most unexpected way).

One thing that really stood out to me while I was reading was how Schwab crafted her words. I know I mention it a lot in my reviews, but beautiful prose is something that draws me to books. And, the prose in Addie LaRue is GORGEOUS; I could keep reading (and rereading) it forever. You can definitely tell the amount of love and work Schwab put into this book - it’s evident on every page.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a celebration of so many things: art, stories, exploring the world, and the freedom of forging your own path. Most of all, though, it’s a celebration of living. It’s also heavily influenced by the joy and discovery of lifelong learning; throughout the novel Addie makes her own choices and never loses her fascination about the world around her.

This is a book that stays with you, one that deserves to be savored, and one I can see myself returning to again and again. Thank you again to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for the privilege of reviewing an ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for a digital ARC of one of my most anticipated books of 2020. Let me just start by saying that this novel not only met my expectations, but far exceeded them. Addie LaRue is beautiful and moving in ways that I wasn't expecting. You can tell that V.E. Schwab took that better part of a decade to craft her tale of a young woman who makes a deal with the darkness. So many moments are woven together to bring this tale to life and for me, everything worked incredibly well. This is a read that should be savored and then read again and again. I will not be forgetting about Addie LaRue any time soon.

AMAZING! It's not a shock this new Schwab book is amazing. Absolutely beautifully written. It pays real homage to all forms of art..

The author spent ten years writing this book. I spent five of that waiting for her to finish and release it. She has spoken at length about the significance of this book in her life and career. She has spoken of the personal nature of the story and the fear of releasing it into the world.

The Invisible Life of Addie Larue defies genre. One might argue that it could be supernatural or speculative fiction, but it exists in a world much like ours. In fact, this could be happening in our world.

Addie makes a deal with a dark God-the devil- in order to evade her impending marriage and ordinary life. She fails to recognize that every deal comes with a cost. The cost of her now immortal existence? No one remembers her. She quickly realizes this upon returning to her parents’ house to find that they fail to recognize her.

The first years of Addie’s immortality are not only painful to her, but to the reader as well. The reader feels for Addie, speaking to Schwab’s excellence as a writer. However, this becomes painful after a while. The alternating time periods between the past and present-day NYC help relieve this pain. In the beginning, I found myself wanting to skim the past in favor of the present. This became more tolerable, and enjoyable, once Addie found her stride. We see her in different time periods and locations, evolving with her as she mentally ages.

The dynamic characters in this novel evoke a plethora of emotions in the reader. Addie is a fierce survivor looking for companionship, frequently falling into the arms of the very being that cursed her. This otherworldly individual, Luc, comes back to Addie time and again. He shows her a bit more of himself every time, terrifying her with his power while simultaneously conditioning her to accept him. Then there’s Henry. Henry is a good natured, kind hearted bookseller who struggles with his identity. He remembers Addie. Addie struggles with the emotional toll of keeping her secret from him, even as he keeps a secret of his own.

Addie’s relationships with Luc and Henry respectively drive the plot. The moments in time we see of Addie frequently involve visits by Luc while Henry exists in her present day life. We do see her before and after these interactions, but the plot requires these visits for it to evolve. Indeed, these interactions reveal aspects of each one’s identity. They influence each other’s lives and change one another as they do it. The chapters from Henry’s perspective provide a refreshing relief from Addie’s in that he’s a normal person compared to her. Addie floats between her mortal (Henry) and immortal (Luc) lives.

One aspect of this book that I appreciated in particular is its treatment of LGBT themes. The novel treats bisexuality as a norm. The author herself said that she wanted to make sure that the LGBT nature of the book was not used as a marketing tool or a plot point. She wanted to normalize it as much as possible- and she succeeded! In my experience, this is a rare gift where books are concerned.

Addie Larue causes one to consider the relationship between self and others as well as self and time. Who are we without our relationships to other people? How does memory play a role in our identities? Can we exist outside of these concepts?

This review fails to do justice to the book’s power, significance, and beauty as well as the author’s talent, insight, and creativity. I enjoyed this book and plan to read it again and again. And just like that, Addie’s immortality leaps from the page and into our world.

At the heart of this story is a woman who wanted more for her life and said she would give anything. Having her wish granted, she realized that giving anything was maybe not as accurate as she thought it was.

Addie is a character that you both empathize with an deeply respect, she has taken her life into her own hands and takes joy where she can find it.

I absolutely recommend this book for anyone who wants a story about finding your place in the world and fighting for what you want.

This book was a beautiful story of being invisible, being seen, being connected, and being torn apart. It is a story of curses, of life, of death, and of time.

In 1714, Addie LaRue makes a deal for her soul, one that makes it so she is forever existing, but never remembered, never able to leave her mark on the world, but then 300 years later someone sees her, and remembers.

Who is Henry? And why does he see Addie in a way that no one has in a very long time?

This book is beautiful and so easy to get sucked into. The story is engaging and so full of heart. it brings up important questions about how we think about the people around us, and what we want from the world.

By this point I’ve read a LOT of books by V.E. Schwab, and I think this one takes the cake for being her most well written. Not only that, but you can really tell how much this story means to her and that just makes this book that much more magical. I mean, this book has been in the works for YEARS, and it really shows how much love and time spent went into this book.

There were quite a lot of twists and turns throughout the book, and I think they were more emotional twists and turns rather than shocking, if that makes sense. This was a very slow-moving novel despite taking place over 300 years, and it’s incredibly bittersweet. There is so much loneliness, longing, hope and inspiration packed into this book, it’s like an emotional rollercoaster. I definitely recommend taking your time to savor this book, because it’s definitely worth it.

Addie as a character has so much strength and courage to survive for so long without giving in, and I admire her so much for that. She didn’t want to just exist in the life expected of her; she wanted to live and explore. So when the day of her wedding came around and she was faced with the rest of her life in her small town, she ran and made a deal to get the freedom she wanted. Only that freedom came with a cost – no one would ever remember her and she cannot leave any marks on the world. She refuses to give in to the darkness that made the deal with her, instead spending 300 years exploring all life had to offer and testing the confines of her new world.

Two other characters that we get to know is the darkness/devil that Addie made the deal with, and Henry, a Jewish bookseller from New York. I won’t go into much detail about these two characters because that would spoil the book, but the way they interact with Addie and how that compares to each other was very interesting. I especially loved Henry and really felt for him and his struggles.

One major theme that runs throughout this book is about art – how important it can be to people and how powerful it is. The relationship that Addie has with art was a wonder to read about, and the way that art was described throughout the book was magical!

The only downside I can see with this book is that the way it’s marketed isn’t exactly what this book is about. It barely scratches the surface of what is explored in this book, so my expectations going into this were a little different. That doesn’t take away from how much I enjoyed this book however!

I highly recommend you check this book out, it will be releasing soon on October 6th, 2020, and trust me, you won’t want to miss this one! Also, I apologize in advance for the emotions and tears you will have by the end of this book.

Review will be going live on my blog (meltingpages.com) on October 3rd!

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue isn’t just a novel—it’s a work of art. Over the years, I’ve read a number of books by Victoria (V.E.) Schwab, but I feel confident in saying this is, bar none, her best work EVER.

Once upon a time, there lived a young woman named Adeline LaRue. Born in a small French hamlet of Villon in the late 17th century, even as a little girl she has felt she that doesn’t quite belong, feeling trapped and stifled by the expectations foisted upon her by her village and her parents. So she prayed for something more. She prayed to the old gods and the new gods, but none would listen. And so, on the day of her wedding, in an act of hopelessness and desperation, she ran into the woods and prayed to the darkness…and something answered.

Addie thought what she wanted was simple. She didn’t want to be beholden to anyone or anything. She just wanted to be free. She just wanted to live. Hence, the darkness, in the form of a handsome green-eyed and dark-haired devil, gave her exactly that.

But everyone knows that deals with devils always have a price. Addie got to live and to be free, but now she is also cursed to wander the earth forever, to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Returning home from the bargain in her torn and muddied wedding dress, her mother and father looked upon her with mistrust and denied ever having a daughter. Similarly, there was no hint of warmth and only suspicion from her best friend who believed Addie to be a stranger. People she would meet on her travels forgot that they ever saw or spoke to her as soon as they turned their backs, because part of Addie’s curse is an inability to leave a single mark on the world, which means she can’t say her own name, tell her own story, or create anything of substance. Even her footprints would fade almost as soon as she makes them, like they were never there.

Three hundred years pass like this. In that time though, Addie has learned a lot about living with her curse. It hasn’t always been easy, but Addie has never given up, even when the darkness, whom she has dubbed Luc, returns again and again, promising to put an end to it all if she would just say the word and surrender her soul. Instead, Addie just finds new ways to goad him, taking joy in her experiences whenever she can. She also discovers the power of ideas, becoming a muse to artists throughout history so she can be immortalized in art. While it is not the same as being remembered, for Addie, it is enough. That is, until one fateful day in a small secondhand bookshop in New York City, she serendipitously meets a young man named Henry. And for some reason, Henry remembers her.

I swear, I still get chills just thinking about the story. I just want to revel in it. Like I said, I’ve read a number of Schwab’s books and I certainly consider myself a fan, but I’ve always thought of her work as more popularist and commercial. As much as I enjoyed her Villains series or her Shades of Magic trilogy, for example, I don’t know if I would ever call them literary masterpieces, but when it comes to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, I wouldn’t hesitate. This novel is her tour de force, a step up from anything she’s ever done before, in my opinion. And to me it also feels very personal to the author, like the story and the characters were poured from her heart straight onto the page.

And the writing, oh my gracious, the writing. Before I got to know Addie, before the story had its chance to cast its spell on me, it was the writing that seized me and pushed this novel into the extraordinary. Every word felt perfectly placed, but Schwab made it all look effortless. With details and descriptions meant to whisk the reader across time and space, she crafts powerful and inspiring imagery to transport you to the eras and places she writes about.

The beautiful language also puts us into the head of our protagonist, a complex woman who has lived many lifetimes—and the writing makes you believe it. The story also introduces Henry and Luc and many other side characters, but it is Addie, always Addie, who has the reader’s full attention. With every stage of her journey, every encounter with the darkness, she learns and she adapts. We see this growth throughout the novel, and we come to sympathize with her pain but also respect her strength, intellect, and determination as she wakes up each morning to face another day of loneliness, watching those she has grown to love look at her without a trace of recognition in their eyes. But while there’s no doubt a lot of sadness and tragedy in The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, there’s a lot of hope too. When she eventually meets the mystery that is Henry, we know exactly what it means for her to be finally remembered, and like spectators drawn to an exhibition, you can’t tear yourself away from the intrigue or stop yourself from rooting for the couple.

Normally, I would roll my eyes at the blatant cheesiness of book taglines, but in this case, I daresay “A Story You Will Never Forget” describes The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue perfectly. It won me over completely, I loved it, and recommend it to all with my whole heart.

I received a gallery copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a review.
I have to confess, this is the first book by V.E. Schwab I have read. I have heard of them and even own 2 of their earlier books and have them in my list of Need To Read. This is not the type of book I normally go for when I am choosing something to read. I am solidly into Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and while this is definitely fantasy it is lighter fantasy.
I started this book and it grabbed me. It didn't take very long to have me hooked and I knew I would be finishing it. I read it in chunks over a few days when I woke in the early hours of the morning and was hoping to occupy my mind so I could settle down and get back to sleep and then over several hours while resting at home recovering from a nasty head cold. The wit and prose of the author makes me want to jump into those other books I have been waiting on and call myself an idiot for trying them sooner. There were several phrases in the book that are quote worthy and I wish I had taken the time to highlight them. It made me an instant fan and I related to all of these characters.
The book does have a narrative that jumps around and does have a couple of perspectives that people who prefer a straightforward story might have an issue with, but I loved the intertwining of the tales and the jumping back into the past while telling the modern aspect of the story. It kept things interesting and added nuance to how things were happening to Addie in the modern world of New York. The book didn't pull punches either and there are some adult themes and I enjoyed the realism and depth it added to the character.
This book was the first one in a very long time that actually pulled on my emotions and I really felt for these characters and what they were experiencing. This is one of the easiest 5 stars I have given a book. Outstanding!

This book was beautiful. There were so many elements that were unique and when they came together it was truly breathtaking. A love story between a French girl and a devil! What not to like?

V.E. Schwab knocks it out of the park again. This book is truly magical. With short chapters and a flip back and forth between time periods, I easily could have powered through this story without stopping, it's that compelling. But I also couldn't allow myself to be done this story too quickly. I needed to soak myself in its words and savour the experience.

This is a story I'm going to want to reread many times in the future.

The premise is clever: girl sells her soul to the devil and ends up with nearly everlasting life. But is just living enough when you'll never be remembered? Never leave a mark on the world or another human being? Never have a history? Characters were wonderfully drawn and the novel was creatively plotted. This is an insightful look at human wants/desires and what many of us really want out of life.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor/Macmillan Books for the ARC to read and review.