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) !!!

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.

It's a long book, but it goes by fast. Addie`s story is sad, but so full of adventure and bravery and hope. It's a vast, epic story, spanning centuries and crossing oceans. Addie is living under a curse, but she's incredibly resourceful and pushes against it and finds ways to enjoy all the time and freedom that she gains in a terrible deal that she makes with a god of darkness.

Wow this book is amazing!

You know how you hit a chapter in a book and it just overwhelms you with how it's set up, and then you can't put the book down after? That's what happens here.

It has great twists and a great setup. It's emotional. It all makes sense.

This book is definitely one to check out.

This might be Schwab's best book yet.

It's so hard to write a review for this without giving away spoilers.

It was so, so, so, good and lovely and a little heartbreaking and weirdly completely hopeful.

The voice drew me in immediately and kept me reading, even though they were a couple of slow spots in the beginning. I didn't mind them much because the writing was so lovely. There were several times I was really captivated by the prose. Scwab's writing is on point for this book.

And that midpoint twist. Ugh. I knew something was up, but I didn't know it was gonna be that.

This is lyrical and lush and at it's core it a romantic love story, but there also themes of what it means to belong to someone, not romantically, but the people in our lives--family and friends--and what happens when a desperate girl makes a bargain to belong to no one.

It's better to go in not knowing a whole lot and be pleasantly surprised.

I can't wait to buy this when it comes out in October.

And there needs to be a sequel. There is room for one, and I really need one. I need to know what Addie does next.

he Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is one of the most wonderful, thought-provoking and heartbreaking books I have ever read, I am fully in love with it, and still processing my absolute race through what has immediately become one of my all-time favourites. It is no secret that I love most of what V. E. Schwab has written, but The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is in a whole other class from Vengeful and A Conjuring of Light again. The prose is beautiful and immersive, full of haunting quotes such as these:

“She has the sense that they would have been friends. If he’d remembered. She tries not to think about that – she swears sometimes her memory runs forward as well as back, unspooling to show the roads she’ll never get to travel.”

“Time – how often has she heard it described as sand within a glass, steady, constant. But that is a lie, because she can feel it quicken, crashing toward her.”

This is a character-driven story, focused on Addie and her life through the centuries. Born in France in the 1700s, she was afraid of living a life that was not her own and ended up making a deal with a mysterious creature, bargaining away more than she thought. While her life was her own for as long as she wanted it, no one would remember her. Not her family, not landlords or store clerks, and certainly not the people she slept with. Until she meets Henry, a bookseller, who seems to remember her when she steals a book from his store – oops.

Through these two characters, V.E. Schwab manages to explore nuances of loneliness in human society in a poignant way, re-evaluating what it means to be seen and remembered, and how it affects the way we perceive ourselves and move through life. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a slow story, taking its time to explore the repercussions of events and the impact of small moments on the characters more than most books we tend to review on here. But that doesn’t mean it is any less compelling and dark – you have your looming antagonist, your morally grey characters and your world working against the heroes.

I do think this is one of those books that have a kind of universal appeal, that people who only read the bitterest of Grimdark will find something in just as much as people who don’t really read any fantasy at all. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a very special book about what it means to be human and to grow.

Thank you to TorBooks for blessing me with an early copy of this book. Seriously, I don't even know where my brain is right now because this book left me absolutely speechless.

I am writing this review mere-minutes after finish it, so I apologize for anything that doesn't.. make sense. Honestly this book makes no-sense and also makes complete sense, so that's probably about what this review will make as well LOL

Schwab is a chameleon when it comes to her writing style. She has written adult fantasy, where you have the quick tongue and the epic fight scenes, and she has written young adult fantasy, where the angst is real. With this book... I feel like it stands completely on its own. Out of all of her work, I would say it is closest to Vicious, purely because of the morally-grey line her characters dance on. This feels a lot more lyrical and lovely and haunting. But, how else would a book about making a deal with the devil sound?

I don't think I will say too much about the content of this book because I feel like it is so much better to go in blind with this one. That's right kids : me, the queen of wanting to be spoiled, wants you to go into this book knowing only one thing : that I absolutely loved this book with my whole heart.

You see a lot of different snips of her life (she has lived around 300 years) and you see the many struggles she has had to go through. It isn't all pretty and elite life when you live forever and no one remembers you. She can't even say her own known or leave a mark... that means no job, no place to put her things, no things to even have, and no people to call her own. I feel like her drive to keep going is to prove that she can and those who doubt her don't know her well enough.

The writing style is very different than Schwab's normal, but at the same time it is such a Schwab way of writing (there I am again with the complete sense but no sense at all type of reviewing... gah). I can feel a little of Gaiman in the writing of this book, which is totally beautiful. If you like the writing style of The Night Circus or the detailed-writing of When Dreams Descend, you are going to eat this book right up.

It took me a few WEEKS to get through the first 30% of this book (it's hard for me to read physical books these days with my health), and it took me literally 3 hours to get through the last 70% (apparently I was having a better health day today with some extra time on the side). If that doesn't tell you how much this book suddenly grabs you out of nowhere, I don't know what will. I was at the point I had it on my tripod, eagerly waiting to swipe to the next page even though I lost the strength to hold my kindle.

And that's about what I got. I loved it, go in blind, and enjoy this crazy ride about a girl who lives forever yet no one remembers.

P.S. : yes, the Schwab-cinnamon-roll-boy is in this book and he is perfection and that is all.

Father teaches her to be a dreamer, mother teaches her to be wife, Estele teaches how to speak to gods

A young woman being forced into marriage makes a desperate plea to get help that lasts a lifetime.
She is now someone noone remembers, she cant write down her story.
She lives through the inventions of trains, lights, photography, phones, airplanes, computers, and the best of inventions= movies! 300 years of wandering and being forgotten - three words...He remembers Her!

Descriptive writing made me feel the story as I read.

Lyrical prose and intentional storytelling make for a clever, exquisite read. Unforgettable characters and dangerous deals might reveal more about the reader’s assumptions than the characters’ quandaries.

This book is a wonderful meditation on what makes us human — the importance of love and making a lasting impact.

okay wow i loved this book. i have been SO excited to read this and it truly was beautiful and unlike anything else i've ever read. i loved the structure of the book - how each chapter was set in a different year/place in addie/henry's life. i loved addie and henry so much.

it's definitely a slow paced book with stunning writing. this is my favourite ve schwab book in terms of the writing style. SO many good quotes.

thank you TOR for sending me an early digital copy for review <3

I enjoyed this book a lot. It is well written. I've never read anything by V.E. Schwab before this., but I may try another. I'm not normally a fan of the fantasy genre. However, this was enjoyable. It was a little bit on the "chick-Lit" side, but most of the time that didn't bother me.
I recommend this book if you are a fan of Audrey Niffennegger or Erin Morganstern.