This is a book about a girl, a boy, a devil, and the stories that get told and repeated and remembered. This is a tale of power dynamics and imbalances and what humans are willing to do to not feel trapped and alone. This is all about a young girl who lives her life for herself, who lives her life in spite of the odds, who lives her life in hopes someone will recall her from memory.

Everything about Addie LaRue completely blew me away. This is the first book by V.E. Schwab that I’ve given five stars to, and I’m not sure a day has passed since reading that I haven’t thought about it. I will say that I think this book (and more importantly the ending) could be a bit polarizing, but this story, this main character, and the way everything was structured just really worked perfectly for me and my reading tastes.

How do I even begin to describe this book to you? There are truly so many layers woven together to make this story. Many of you know, this is something that V.E. Schwab has been working on for a decade and you can tell they really put their whole heart and soul into these complex characters:

➽ Addie - A girl with seven freckles, and she is told that there is one for every love she would ever have. She was born in a small town, and had small town expectations placed on her, but Addie had big dreams and desired to see as much of the world as she possibly could. And when she turns twenty-three, and everyone thinks her time is slowly running out, she quickly finds out that time is something she will never have to fear again.
"Spells are for the witches, and witches are too often burned."


➽ Henry - Works at a bookstore in New York while trying to live his life to the fullest. And he happens to be able to see a girl that has never been remembered before.
"I remember you."


➽ Luc - A god you should never pray to after dark, unless you are very desperate, and feel very helpless, and are willing to pay the unknown price.
"I am stronger than your god and older than your devil. I am the darkness between stars, and the roots beneath the earth. I am promise, and potential, and when it comes to playing games, I divine the rules, I set the pieces, and I choose when to play. And tonight, I say no."


And maybe, just maybe, Addie felt like she should be able to pay the price when she runs into the forest one night, willing to risk everything to have a life that is hers once and for all. We get to see Addie and her struggles and her growth over the course of three-hundred-years, starting in 1714 France and switching to 2014 America. We get to see so much of Addie’s hurt throughout the centuries, but we also get to see so much of her yearning. Yearning for love, yearning for knowledge, yearning for art, yearning for a life that is worthy of remembrance. Truly, this book was able to evoke such visceral reactions from me, and I could truly feel Addie’s yearning, and her hurt, on every page.

Now that I have used the word “yearning” one-hundred times, let’s talk about some of the rep in Addie LaRue, because there are lots of queer characters and characters who read queer! Addie is pan or bi, and we get to see her in relationships with different genders throughout this book, but the main relationship (and yearning) is m/f. I believe Henry is pan, but it is never said on page, but "he’s attracted to a person first and their gender second" had me and my pan heart ascending to new heights, I promise you that. Addie and Henry are both white, but there are POC side characters and other identities on the LGBTQIAP+ spectrum (gay, lesbian, maybe some polyamorous hints)! And this book, has some very serious depression representation!
"It’s just a storm, he tells himself, but he is tired of looking for shelter. It is just a storm, but there is always another waiting in its wake."


Being unsure what you want in life. Especially in your twenties. Feeling like something is wrong with you. Feeling like you’ll never be enough. Feeling like you’ll never be whole. Feeling like you are just disappointing everyone around you. Feeling like no one will ever take the time to see you, the real you, and choose to love you unconditionally anyways. Whew, it’s a lot, and V.E. Schwab really didn’t hold back while writing Henry and his mental health. I don’t want to make this too personal, but it means a lot to me, and I know Henry’s journey is going to mean a lot to so many people and impact a lot of lives.

(Also, friendly reminder that life is truly a vast range of up and down journeys! And you, and your journey, are valid, and I see you no matter how hard that journey feels at times. There will be lots of heavy days, but lots of light days too, I promise. And you are so worthy of love, and kindness, and respect, no matter where you are at on your journey. And feeling too much is not a curse, ever. And I’m proud of you, and you are never alone with what you are feeling, and sometimes we all need help with some storms: http://suicidepreventionlifeline.org)
"His heart has a draft. It lets in light. It lets in storms. It lets in everything."


Plus, a key component of this story is the god who Addie makes a deal with. Addie and Luc’s three-hundred-year bargain is so very messy and has so very many different elements. But the key element is the unhealthy power dynamic. Over this course of time, we get to see their relationship change, and morph, and grow, and we get to see Addie desperately trying to gain some of the power for herself. But, it is a very unhealthy cycle of abuse and this story is told in a way where the reader gets to see these power imbalances come more and more into play and Luc and Addie set the stage of their game(s) more and more. I’ll be the first to say I always wanted more of Luc, and I loved every chapter he was in, and I constantly wanted to know more about him, but I will also say that I personally feel like V.E. Schwab was very deliberate with his character and with making him charming and intriguing and a character to be romanticized, because abusers can have all of those characteristics and still be abusers.

But we get to see Luc, and Henry, and Addie, and watch their intertangled stories unwind. I truly feel like I can’t say much more about the actual story, and I believe it’s probably best to not know much more than what I’ve said above, but seeing these characters, during all their different phases in life, both alone and together, is truly something like a work of art.
"Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one."


This entire story truly is a love letter to art and the beautiful, awe inspiring, mind-blowing way stories are held within art, therefore held in so many hearts forever. Maybe even creating and inspiring other art, to make the sweetest ripple effect of them all. Art and stories are so powerful because they have the power to heal wounds that are too deep to be touched by other things. From feeling love, to feeling not alone, to inspiring, to escape, to be thought provoking, to be educational, to make you realize things you have been forced to internalize and unlearn, to something as simple yet as hard as happiness.
"Because time is cruel to all, and crueler still to artists. Because vision weakens, and voices wither, and talent fades. " He leans close, twists a lock of her hair around one finger. "Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end, " he says, "everyone wants to be remembered."


While I was reading this book, me and my best friend Lea watched a video that was reuploaded on V.E.’s YouTube. It was basically just an hour-long discussion that they had with Tessa Gratton, where they talk about many things, but one of the things they talked about that I especially haven’t been able to stop thinking about since finishing this book was that we never get to really pick what work we will be known for. Obviously, Victoria is very well-know from their series A Darker Shade of Magic, and it very well could be the greatest legacy that the world will know from them. Yet, they talk about how Addie LaRue is the book of their heart, and (I do not want to put any words in their mouth) it kind of felt like to me the book they may want the world to know them for. Yet, we never really get to choose what we are known for, do we? A very astounding concept to think about, truly, and one I couldn’t stop feeling deeply in my bones while I finished the last half of this book. Also, to think about how the human experiences could boil down to this hunger we all have to leave a mark on this world before we are forced to leave it all together? Very powerful stuff, truly. But I promise, V.E. Schwab and Addie Larue most definitely left their marks on me, and my heart, forever with this book.

"Humans are capable of such wondrous things. Of cruelty, and war, but also art and invention."


Overall, this book made me yearn for so many things while also constantly making me question what it is to hunger. To crave your freedom, to crave someone who will see all the parts of you, to crave remembrance. I just feel like this book really touched on the human experience, but in such a incredibly raw and indistinguishably beautiful way. I really loved The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and it will without a doubt make my best of 2020 list. Thank you for letting me be a part of your story, thank you for always reading this part of mine, and I promise you will never be invisible to me.

V. E. Schwab has brought a new and exciting tale of Faustian Bargains and theIt consequences. A unique story centered on an age old cautionary tale. Schwab creates a richly imaginative world with equally wonderful characters. Fans and new readers alike will enjoy the unique way Schwab introduces her newest characters as she weaves a tapestry of their lives with their own challenges, each one’s emotionally driven trials and the outcomes shared by them all. When one makes a Faustian deal as does the main character, Addie LaRue, it is rarely for simple reasons. The complicated decision and its consequences will keep every reader turning pages as fast as they can read them. This new novel is an excellent example of Schwab’s ability to write such fully imaginative and compelling stories. This is one of her best.

This is probably the best book that I read this year. I already love V.E. Schwab but I was beyond impressed with the detail and care that went into the writing of this book. Very much worth the read.

An fascinating tale of a village girl that has always wanted to break out from her village and see the world and learn new things. However every wish comes with a price and it is always a high price to pay. The main character is given immortality and the curse of being quickly forgotten by everyone she ever meets except for one person after 300 years. This is all done the by Luc who is a devil of sorts that you just love to hate. In the end after all of Addie's trials she finally gets a chance to be remembered instead of forgotten by book store owner Henry who has his own issues in this story.

I definitely enjoyed this tale and the ending was absolutely fantastic.

I've been a fan of Schwab's writing for a while; her worldbuilding skills are incredible and her books are always page-turners for me. But I felt that this one fell short. It was slow, not in a good way, and it didn't really feel fresh or creative in the way that Schwab's books normally do.

Review posted on GoodReads (August 31, 2020)
Review Linked.

5/5 stars!

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for sending me an E-ARC for an honest review!

This is one of the hardest reviews to write as a non-spoiler review because I just want to scream about this book and everything that happened from the rooftop. This review will be spoiler free however, and I will have a full review with spoilers on my YouTube channel when the book releases.

I have loved every single one of V.E. Schwab's books, and this book is no exception. I had heard so many things about this book so I had pretty high expectations going into it and all of those expectations were met. This book is utterly beautiful. Schwab's writing shines in this book and she shows how talented she is as a writer and weaver of fantastical yet real and substantial stories.

This book's characters are some of the most honest, dimensional, real, beautiful, and complex characters I had ever read about. This isn't a fairytale story. To me, this is a story about life, the ups and downs of it and how life can be hard and beautiful at the same time. Addie's story is honest and beautiful and I am utterly in love with everything in this book.

I recommend that everyone read this book because it is now one of my favorite books of all time.

Thanks for reading!
Caden

This book is simultaneously soul crushing and hopeful at the same time. It made me really miss my family and nostalgic for the past. However, I do have a few qualms with this book. One, I felt that it was a little predictable at times. Two, the ending was a bit anti-climatic. And three, I felt it was longer than it needed to be and there were some lulls in the narrative. In the end I wouldn't say this is my favorite Schwab book, but it's still good.

I kept seeing this title pop up, so I decided I needed to read it--and it did not disappoint! There is much to unpack here, but I was most intrigued by the treatment of the title character's inability to be remembered. It wasn't the big issues that Addie faces that are getting to her; it's the inability to have any sort of continuity in her life. [Actually, there is one constant in her life; one who remembers her. But it's not necessarily a good thing.]
The story takes place mainly in modern times, with chapters detailing Addie's 300 year history set within the current story. I loved the descriptions of the various eras. The exposition of Addie's day-to-day struggles as she learns to turn disadvantage to advantage really made me pause to think about what it means to exist.
If you enjoy a good story, a little history, a pinch of the supernatural, and a very clever female protagonist, this title should be on your reading list

Really enjoyed this. Watching Victoria grow as an author is such a privilege. You can tell she was thinking about this story for a long time. Very well considered storyline.

The propulsive plot of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue leads to unexpected places in this new book by V.E. Schwab. Addie LaRue made a deal with the Darkness as a young woman who wanted to be free instead of forced into a marriage in her small village in France. She will give him her soul - when she is done with it. In the meantime, she is free to roam the world, but only as a permanent stranger. No one is allowed to remember her, and she cannot leave her mark directly on the world. Through the centuries, Addie LaRue finds loopholes in her deal and her interaction with art and her role as a muse provide some of the best parts of the book. Her relationships with men over the years are achingly sad because of the limits of her deal with the Darkness, but it is her time with the Darkness that really makes the book shine. One of my favorite books of the year.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2464208694

Wow! I found myself hooked from page one! A girl trades her soul to the darkness for the freedom to experience life, and then she does for the next three hundred years. She sees and remembers all of it but none it remembers her. This book haunted my dreams and I woke up at night believing the baby lying next to me no longer remembered me 😂 This book is a masterpiece.

I sadly had to DNF this title. I put so much expectation into this book, but I was let down so hard. I found this troublesome to get through and the flashbacks were quite boring. What the author talked about on her social media and the end result feels like two completely different books. I thought we were going to get a fantasy romance with a girl making a deal with the devil and they somehow fall in love. The writing is so flowery and everything is a description of something instead of actually telling a story. I know so many people love it and will love it, I'm just not one of them.

I finished this book several weeks ago and still think about it frequently. The concept is so original. In 1714 France, Addie is reluctantly getting married, meaning a lifetime of hard work, child rearing, never leaving her small village, and most likely an early death due to the first two things. She desperately prays to the old gods and one answers. He gives her freedom, but at a price. She will live forever, but every one she meets will immediately forget her. Addie embarks on this remarkable life until 300 years later, a man in a bookshop remembers her. Through Addie, the reader travels through centuries of existence and witnesses first hand so many remarkable moments. Just as fascinating is the questions about life and time that Addie is facing on a daily basis. Read this book!

This book shouldn't be possible. It's a testament to Schwab's skill that it works - even with a meandering plot over 300 years and tension that ebbs and flows, there's still something riveting and deeply affecting about this story. It moves languidly, allowing the emotional landscape to drive the story forward toward what you know is going to be a dreadful end. There's something so human about the growing dread interspersed with moments of ecstasy, joy, and loveliness. This is a book to take your time with, if you can force yourself to put it down.

This is one absolutely magical book by V.E Schwab! Knowing that this took the author years to work on in order to get it right, she can be rest assured that it is basically perfect.
When I read, I read for feeling first and foremost. From the first page, I was transported into this version of our world where the old gods make deals and promises either for good or for bad. The relationship between Addie and her old god gave me chills from beginning to end. The relationship between Addie and Henry made my heart soar with hope. But no matter what, I was filled with the feeling of this book itself being magical.
I adored the structure of the work, with the shorter chapters that made me want bigger and bigger bites but still satisfied my cravings when I only had short times to read. You can tell that every word structure is crafted just so to do this story justice.
Please make sure you pick up a copy and enter this magical world! I know I will be putting it next to The Night Circus on my top five reads shelf.

This one surprised me. I found myself invested in the main characters' journey throughout this magical and thought-provoking story. The writing had a lyrical rhythm to it and I found myself circling back to a few sentences just to have them linger in my mind a while longer.
Whether it was the writing itself or the theme of living an invisible life that captivated me, I don't know for sure., but each resonated in its own way.
Similar to other reviews, I found myself so engrossed in the present-day story, that there was one flashback chapter I rushed through toward the end that felt unnecessary. The story also took a while to find its proper pacing. Oddly, I also felt the first few pages were a rough go that failed to capture the amazing writing to follow.
Case in point, line 8 page 1: "It isn't his fault-it is never their faults." Please change this clunky sentence! I truly cringed. There were a few other grammatical errors I found on the Kindle version with a few word omissions that will presumably be caught during final editing before release.
This is a very memorable read and one of the first advanced copies I'm excited to see published. Thank you kindly for the opportunity to review and for not passing me by as though I were invisible! I give this one a solid 4 to 5-star review.

This book is simply phenomenal. It takes you on such a journey and leaves you wanting more the whole time. I was intrigued by Addie’s life story and couldn’t put it down.

A very high 4 stars!
This novel is an allegorical commentary on humanity and the intricacies of what it means to be human. The overall timeline, which is not written chronologically, was executed very well, as well as the use of various works of art to act as a subheading for each section. The reading was enjoyable; it as a bit slow at first. Schwab did an amazing job of braiding together these narratives both within a historical context and in terms of perspective. The writing style also was on point. There were chapters which included these short, staccato almost lists which reflects on the fragility of humanity, and then there were other moments that were languid and flowing which reflects upon the existence, or lack, of time.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel (I kind of want to go back a reread with notes and analyze the text, but that is just the language arts teacher in me) !!!

Let me begin by saying VE Schwab is one of my favorite authors, the only author I've met in person, and probably the author of the most books on my bookshelf. I love how she refuses to shy away from the dark and messy parts of humans and stories, especially in Vicious/Vengeful, the ADSOM series, and The Monsters of Verity. I can see how much V's writing has improved with each book she publishes, and since this story was her most personal and her brainchild for over a decade, I was incredibly excited to read perhaps the best book she's published. Everyone I knew who had ARCs was raving about how this book was life-changing.

Maybe my expectations were a little too high.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this book, but I personally would not call it V's best. I guess my point here is if you have some of the same annoyances I'm about to describe, don't give up on her books because you'll probably find another series or book that speaks to you more!

Addie and I got off to a rough start. I've grown used to Schwab's writing style, which is highly stylistic, full of vivid imagery, dotted with purposeful repetition, and punctuated with abrupt interjections that interrupt the dreamlike quality of the prose to great dramatic effect.

Like this.

And while this style usually works well for her novels, I felt like this book took a good 100+ pages for the drama of the story to catch up to the drama of the writing style. I felt like the prose was needlessly dramatic as it described Addie's existence as a twenty-something in modern day New York, a decidedly un-dreamlike setting. The writing is the kind that makes you catch your breath, but in large doses it really does feel like you're gasping. Either the writing style was reigned in or I got used to it, but by the second half of the book I didn't notice it as much. It probably helped that the fantastical and suspenseful elements of the plot were in full force by then, justifying the highly stylistic prose.

My other annoyance with this book is how Very White it was considering the premise. This book did have queer representation and I appreciated that. Considering that Addie is a self-proclaimed traveler who has had 200+ years to explore the world, though, I was disappointed that the only mention of a non-European culture was passing mention of her love of Moroccan food. If Addie wasn't a wanderer and the devil she bargained with was a spirit or creature specifically from Western European folklore, I wouldn't be so annoyed since global cultures would be outside the scope of the story. However, neither of these was the case.

Addie speaks 9 languages, almost all of them from Western Europe, and among them German and Swiss. For those who don't know, Switzerland's four national languages are German, French, Italian, and Romansh, and while Swiss German is distinct from German, it is a dialect and not its own language. Why couldn't this German dialect have been replaced with Polish, or Turkish, or Chinese? Perhaps China was too far for Addie to travel in the 1800s, but surely she could have made her way to Eastern Europe? This is a mild spoiler, so feel free to skip until the bold sentence if you'd like to avoid it: At one point, the "devil" Luc teleports Addie from her home in France to Italy in order to surround her with the unfamiliar and break her. Again, why couldn't Luc have taken her out of Western Europe if the goal was to take her somewhere unfamiliar? Do ancient shadowy chaos gods not have jurisdiction outside of Western Europe and America? These were such easy ways to include more cultures in this book without changing the spirit of the story, and V chose not to take them.

I've spent a long time on what I found disappointing in this book, so I will also spend a long time on what I loved about it. I thought the premise of being forgotten in exchange for living forever was really interesting, and I loved that even though we knew everyone Addie interacted with would forget her once they looked away, we still ached and hoped for it not to be true. There were so many small heartbreaks as yet another character would inevitably forget Addie and she'd be forced to move on. Still, Addie has so many friendships, relationships, and meaningful experiences despite not having days or years to get to know other people.

One really cool aspect of this book is that it is told in isolated incidents over time, and even though the timeline is highly nonlinear, you don't need to stretch your brain to piece things together. I thought the way the chapters were organized was really well done, because it heightened the suspense and developed the atmosphere in a nuanced and layered way as stories from different times dovetailed together.

I also really loved Addie's evolving relationship with Luc. She makes a naive deal for freedom, and he does his best to break her and get her to surrender, but Addie is clever and defiant. She endures horrific situations, and each time Luc comes back to ask her if she's given up, she refuses. Despite her refusal to surrender, Luc is the only one who remembers her over time and knows what she is going through. At the same time, Addie is one of the few constants in Luc's existence...can your enemy become your friend and confidante? Can you love your enemy or are you just seeking false comfort? One thing that surprised me is that this isn't really a love story between a French girl and a devil even though it's marketed that way, so just a heads up if that's what you're expecting. It's more of a complicated rivalry where two foes are circling each other and you don't know if they're about to dance together or stab one another. Theirs is a particular form of toxic relationship, and I like that the abuse was never romanticized.

I thought it was really cool to see how Addie manages to find ways to leave her mark on the world, even if it is only indirectly. The concepts of ideas being bigger than people and art transcending memory were beautiful. I'm excited to see the finished copy of this book so that I can see the sketches that were only described in text in the eARC.

I thought this book had a fantastic and fitting ending. If the ending hadn't been so satisfying, I probably would have knocked off another star in my rating. I'm not talking about the meta stuff towards the end of the book, I can't decide if that part was fitting or too gimmicky. The last few pages though, those were truly incredible.

A free eARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

if you came here for a love story between a girl and the darkness she made a deal with, don’t even bother. i think that the story was actually pretty good but it wasn’t what it was advertised as. i thought this story would be about a girl falling in love with the devil and it wasn’t at all, which is fine but when you have so many people hyped up because we think we’re going to get the villain and the protagonist in love but you don’t write that i feel like it’s kind of cheap.

it was a love triangle and it was quite pointless. it was like she needed one thing to help push the story along so she just came up with a whole person and made them the love interest. but i don’t think her being in love with him was very believable at all.

i think that V.E. Schwab has a habit of writing her female characters to be “not like other girls” and i was hoping that it wouldn’t be the same but sadly it was. i think that she tends to self insert with her characters when it comes to that aspect and you can very much tell. someone please tell her it’s okay to be girly and that being “different” and not into what makes you feminine doesn’t make you special, it feels very put downish.

i wanted to like this book so much because her writing was better than it typically is and i liked a lot of the quotes a lot and i liked the fact that we learned why Addie wanted to live forever and saw people forgetting about her. even how some chapters were in present day and the next was in the past.

but i just feel bamboozled like why advertise it as something it clearly isn’t? like i said the book is good and i can understand why people would love it, i just feel like, don’t make the book out to be something that it isn’t because for people who came for the romance are going to be very disappointed and speaking of the romance, i feel like the romance in general was poo poo. i don’t think that Schwab is good at writing romance at all.

i hated nothing more the corny ass ending too, i don’t mind ambiguous endings but this one was just so bad, it’s something i would’ve wrote in my 5th grade fictional books i used to do for class.