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.
TITLE: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
AUTHOR: V.E. Schwab
PUBLISHER: Macmillan - Tor/Forge
PUBLICATION DATE: October 6, 2020
FORMAT:DRC
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
There’s a reason(s) that I’ve read every book by V.E. Schwab!
1. Her worldbuilding is phenomenal
2. Every story is uniquely written
3. Her characters come to life right before my eyes
This is just a few of the many reasons and as I read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, I added heart-wrenching and hopeful with a lot of poetically written dialogue.
“Palimpsest. She doesn’t know the word just yet, but fifty years from now, in a Paris Salon, she will hear it for the first time, the idea of the past blotted out, written over by the present …”
Addie is a character that I grew to love for her adventurous nature, her quest for knowledge, and her thirst for life but mostly, her ability to keep moving forward in the face of adversity. To be forgotten seconds after leaving one’s sight would be more awful than I originally thought. Never to form a meaningful relationship or settle down anywhere for very long. The implications of this are many. The one constant in her life is Luc, the devil she made a bargain with on that desperate night, until she meets Henry.
“Other people would call him sensitive, but it is more than that. The dial is broken, the volume turned all the way up. Moments of joy register as brief, but ecstatic. Moments of pain stretch long and unbearably loud.”
The story explores not only the pain that Addie experiences over 300 years of being forgotten, of experiencing war, homelessness, trauma, and loneliness but it also explores the many delights that Addie see’s through her journeys, the people she’s met that she hasn’t forgotten who’ve touched her life in both positive and negative ways. Her joy for life rarely falters, even in the most heart-breaking of times.
“…it is sad, of course, to forget. But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten. To remember when no one else does.”
I’m going to avoid saying anymore about the plot because I don’t want to spoil this amazing story for anyone. I will say that The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue made my top five favorites this year and I’m still thinking about it today, two days after I’ve finished it.
A great big thank you to Macmillan – Tor/Forge, V.E. Schwab, and NetGalley for providing me with a DRC of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue in exchange for my review.
#IRememberAddie
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