The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Have you ever gone to a tourist trap, thinking “I’m finally going to see this place”, only to get there a find out that there’s really nothing to see? You get there, you look over a guardrail at the place you thought you’d be able to explore and experience, only to find that you can only look at it from a distance, and then there’s nothing else to do but get back in your car and go home. That is the emotional equivalent of reading The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. I am so very disappointed in this book. I was so stoked about the premise, and I thought it’d be dark and gritty and cool and we’d get a complex plot with a sprinkle of a love story. But, instead, it was a 300 year slog through the endless emotional cycle of regret and loneliness of a 300 year old girl, her emotionally manipulative demon lover, and her clinically depressed, unbearably boring boyfriend. I could not get through it fast enough. This entire book feels like a missed opportunity. Instead of going from beginning to end, letting time and consequence shape this character, we skate over the tiny detail of our Addie’s immortality by jumping back and forth along the timeline. And I know Victoria Schwab loooves jumping timelines. It’s her jam, and that’s fine, when it’s done well and with purpose. In this book, they’re literally spoilers, even going as far as using the phrase, “Later, she will learn…” Oh, good, then there’s no point in telling this story? Great. Glad I’m here. The timeline jumps not only ruin any tension in the story due to their poor timing, they serve as a mere acknowledgement of the passing of time, and gives us a rushed, topical rundown of the historical events the character has lived through that, while they shape the entire foundation of the world Addie lives in, don’t seem to affect her at all. The other problem is Addie. She is a miserable, honestly pretty whiny, weirdly stubborn character from start to finish, and the author really grinds that misery in at every opportunity. It’s hard to follow her around and not be bored with her, “I’m lonely and sad all the time, but I’m also pointlessly stubborn about staying that way” narrative. I could go on, but I’ll just say, I’m disappointed and I wanted it to be better.

Dragging pace and repetitive, I feel like I’ve been reading this book for 300 years— and I haven’t quite struggled to the halfway point! Add an immature protagonist who never seems to learn anything or grow spiritually and a few lackluster love interests and you have the recipe for a boring, go nowhere read that leaves you scratching your head. It is very rare for me to give up on a book, but when you find yourself rooting for the devil to end the misery of continuing the story, it’s time to slam the cover closed!

I bought this book based on the blurb. I bought this book because I fell victim to the hype. Am I now sad I paid full price for this instead of waiting it to roll through on a kindle daily deals email ? Yes. I get that the premise was supposed to show how invisible Addie wasn’t. I understand truly that the way chapters skipped from past to present and sideways should have been soothing and easy. None of this was the case. I found the title character somewhat annoying, I found the skipping between past and present jarring and not at all well done. I wanted to love this book and for the first 32% of it I tried. I really tried. The hype you know? But I just couldn’t. I slogged my way through the remainder wishing every time I opened it that it would get better and it just didn’t. I am sure there will be others and indeed there have been others who enjoy this book. It just dragged on and on for me from lackluster beginning to dissatisfying end.

In an act of desperation, Addie LaRue makes a deal with a devil to live forever but in exchange no one will ever remember her. She then learns the loneliness that is a life where everyone forgets you. It\’s not until 300 years later that she does meet someone who actually remembers her, a 28 year old man named Henry. This is a very slow-paced novel. Ms. Schwab takes her time to fully introduce Addie so you can understand her character– why Addie makes a deal in the first place. She then takes her time to allow you to feel what Addie feels– the unrelenting loneliness and what it means to live for 300 years. I found myself overtime emphasizing Addie\’s burden, and was happy when she finally meets Henry. I couldn\’t help but ship them together in hopes of a sweet romance with a happy ending. Then there is the mystery of why Henry can remember her– why does a man 300 years from Addie\’s original life have this ability? Is it fate that they met? The technique that Ms. Schwab uses to slowly reveal all the mysteries is by alternating chapters between the past to present, which in this case is the year 2014. I\’ve always wanted a good story involving both past and present point-of-views to show how a past from long ago affects the present, and the order of everything told here helped me understand Addie\’s motivations, feelings, and responses. I really appreciated the execution. I believe I heard this novel pitched as a hate to love romance between a human and a devil. I would like to clarify that it is much more complex than that. The devil character himself is never necessarily referred to as such, and he is a very dark character that you\’ll meet through Addie\’s past. He is dangerous and not to be taken lightly. I\’m very happy that I read this book. I\’ve read a few of Ms. Schwab\’s other novels and while the pitch behind them have been amazing, the execution has been a little flat for me personally. Ms. Schwab has really grown as a writer with this one however, and I will definitely continue to pick up her books.

This book was absolutely incredible. I am a fan of Schwab’s other work, so I was extremely excited about ‘The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue’, especially as Schwab has talked on multiple occasions about it being a book that really means a lot to her. I went in with high expectations and yet somehow it exceeded every one of them. I absolutely adored every moment of this book – it took me through such a range of emotions and utterly broke my heart. It kept me guessing until the end, as I never truly knew exactly what was going to happen next, despite my constant guessing. This book is beautiful, the characters are incredible and this is definitely one of the most compelling books I have ever read. This is a very character driven book, and Addie as a character is wonderful, because she is flawed. She spends her life forgotten, and so she has picked up a lot of bad habits in order to survive. I really liked the fact that Addie is not perfect, because she is a reflection of human existence. She has gone through so much and yet never loses her love for art, or for life. She has goes through the best and worst of human existence, and still finds joy in the world. She finds something new, and I feel like we all need a bit of Addie in our lives to remind us that joy can be found in the strangest of places. There are so many incredible characters in this book, predominately Henry the person who remembers her and Luc, the devil who cursed her. But each person that Addie meets adds a new layer to the story, and a new outlook and insight into this world. Each chapter was a new exploration, a new idea, explored through encounters with the people surrounding Addie. The plot seems like a simple ‘person sold their soul to the devil to live forever’ kind of story, but it is so much more than that. There is so much to this book, but it is best left discovered in your own time. This book starts slow, in that it slowly pulls you into its rhythm, flipping backwards and forwards in time between events that all build upon each other. This creates the feeling that it’s weaving you into the story, dropping hints here and there until you’re so caught up in what will happen next that you can’t think of much else and don’t want to stop reading. This is definitely a book that will stay with me for a long time, and keeps haunting my thoughts. ‘The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue’ is thought provoking, and brings up a lot of thoughts about the nature of existence and what it means to live. Can we really live without making a mark on the world, or is it the impression we have on others that makes us real? I wasn’t expecting this book to raise a lot of philosophical questions, and make me rethink the nature of existence, relationship with art and the meaning of life but it did! It made me think a lot about my own insecurities about life, being forgotten and the nature of art and reality. I’m sure a lot of readers won’t be quite so plagued by these thoughts but they were such an important part of the book in my opinion and they have left an impression on me in the most interesting way! There’s also such a focus on art in the book, which ties the whole thing together in such a wonderful way. There was such a love of art that came across in the pages, it felt like a love letter to creativity at times, which I found really inspiring. Overall, I absolutely adored this book. It was beautiful, lyrical, incredibly written and haunting. It took me through such a range of emotions, and left me wanting more. The characters were fantastic, the story was gripping and it lived up to and then exceeded every one of my hopes. Schwab is a master storyteller and this is her best book to date. This book is special, fully of joy and I hope everyone who reads it loves it as much as I do.

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