The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Book Review
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue | 3/5 Stars | Fun Read, Fantasy, Slightly Overhyped.
Title: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Author: V.E. Schwab
Pages: 560
Published: October 2020
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction
Themes: Memory, History, Art
I’ll start off by saying that I went into this book already being a V.E. Schwab fan. I completely devoured the Shades of Magic trilogy, so I was eager to pick up a new release by her! The premise is compelling- a young woman makes a deal with the devil to live forever, with the caveat that she will be forgotten by everyone she meets. The idea of following someone through hundreds of years of history that can be virtually invisible is such a cool idea, but ultimately a very ambitious one that doesn’t quite pay off.
Summary
The story starts in France in 1714, where our protagonist Adeline LaRue is being forced into a marriage she doesn’t want to enter. Feeling desperate for a way out and against better warning to “never pray to the gods that answer after dark,” she makes a deal with a demonic entity she names Luc. In exchange for immortality, she will be forgotten by everyone she meets the moment they separate from her.
“You want an ending," she says. "Then take my life when I am done with it. You can have my soul when I don't want it anymore."
The reality of this deal sets in when her own mother and father don’t remember her and she has to leave the small town she’s desperately tried to be rid of. This search for a home, or lack of one, will follow her throughout the story. In addition to her inability to form human connections, Addie is unable to “leave her mark on the world” in other ways; whenever she writes, draws, or appears in photos it disappears. Her journey will take her all over the world over 300 years until she finally meets someone who remembers her name.
Review
“Do you think a life has any value if one doesn’t leave some mark upon the world?”
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue poses some really interesting questions about what it means to be human. Addie starts out as a restless and adventure-hungry young woman that doesn’t want to follow the typical life of those around her. She loves to draw and go to the market in a larger town with her father. Addie is a character you will either love or hate, and I think that’s part of what makes her so appealing. The ‘seven freckles on her face for every love she would ever have’ will either be charming or annoying, but don’t ultimately have any plot payoff.
For me, the most redeeming part of Addie is her toughness. Even though she can’t die, she still feels all the pain of hunger, thirst, cold, etc. She’s still human. During her first year, living on the streets in Paris, she essentially freezes to death and wakes up in a wagon full of corpses. She suffers far worse pains than a life of marriage and children in a small town would have brought upon her, but she is still determined not to give up her life.
As she begins to find her way of living despite the curse, she finds a loophole. Other people can paint her, write about her and so on, at least for the time they remember her. So she finds artists throughout history and acts as a kind of muse. As she begins to appear in museums around the world, she starts to learn something new about how to make a mark on the world.
“The first mark she left upon the world, long before she knew the truth, that ideas are so much wilder than memories, that they long and look for ways of taking root.”
For me, this is where the book starts to fall apart a little. Once she learns the power of implanting ideas, there would be so many things one could do with that power. But she continues to float around having one-night stands with artists and eventually starting a sexual relationship with Luc, and not really affecting history in any meaningful way.
Our connections with other humans mean we will leave a mark on the world in some way, no matter what. It’s the definition of ‘leaving a mark’ that varies from individuals and what Addie has to learn for herself. It’s the perceived value of the mark and how far it stretches. Every decision we make has implications for others, big or small, and I don’t feel like Addie really ever learns this. She doesn’t want to be under the power of a marriage or a small town, but she winds up under the power of Luc anyway. I think what’s most telling about the catch to her immortality is that she only leaves a mark on someone else’s life once they finally remember her.
“Being forgotten, she thinks, is a bit like going mad. You begin to wonder what is real, if you are real. After all, how can a thing be real if it cannot be remembered?”
This book has already received a lot of hype and I think that’s partially because Addie is such a polarizing character. She is living life her way whether you like it or not, which leads to both adoration and contempt. To me, Addie is someone so desperate to experience living, the good and the bad, that I can’t help but find her a character compelling enough to make the book worth reading.
“And there in the dark, he asks if it was really worth it.
Were the instants of joy worth the stretches of sorrow?
Were the moments of beauty worth the year of pain?
And she turns her head, and looks at him, and says 'Always'.
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