Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Hi everyone! What better review to share during blogtober than Addie LaRue! This was such a hard review to write because I had so many feelings and it’s hard to process it all, but I tried to get my feelings across. Addie LaRue comes out in just a few days on October 6th, and I hope you all check it out because it was amazing!

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
by V.E. Schwab
Series: Standalone
Release date: October 6th 2020

Genre: Adult, Historical Fiction, Fantasy
Rating:  ★★★★★

A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.

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.

By this point I’ve read a LOT of books by V.E. Schwab, and I think this one takes the cake for being her most well written. Not only that, but you can really tell how much this story means to her and that just makes this book that much more magical. I mean, this book has been in the works for YEARS, and it really shows how much love and time spent went into this book.

There were quite a lot of twists and turns throughout the book, and I think they were more emotional twists and turns rather than shocking, if that makes sense. This was a very slow moving novel despite taking place over 300 years, and it’s incredibly bittersweet. There is so much loneliness, longing, hope and inspiration packed into this book, it’s like an emotional rollercoaster. I definitely recommend taking your time to savor this book, because it’s definitely worth it.

Addie as a character has so much strength and courage to survive for so long without giving in, and I admire her so much for that. She didn’t want to just exist in the life expected of her; she wanted to live and explore. So when the day of her wedding came around and she was faced with the rest of her life in her small town, she ran and made a deal to get the freedom she wanted. Only that freedom came with a cost – no one would ever remember her and she cannot leave any marks on the world. She refuses to give in to the darkness that made the deal with her, instead spending 300 years exploring all life had to offer and testing the confines of her new world.

Two other characters that we get to know is the darkness/devil that Addie made the deal with, and Henry, a Jewish bookseller from New York. I won’t go into much detail about these two characters because that would spoil the book, but the way they interact with Addie and how that compares to each other was very interesting. I especially loved Henry and really felt for him and his struggles.

One major theme that runs throughout this book is about art – how important it can be to people and how powerful it is. The relationship that Addie has with art was a wonder to read about, and the way that art was described throughout the book was magical!

The only downside I can see with this book is that the way it’s marketed isn’t exactly what this book is about. It barely scratches the surface of what is explored in this book, so my expectations going into this were a little different. That doesn’t take away from how much I enjoyed this book however!

I highly recommend you check this book out, it will be releasing soon on October 6th 2020 and trust me, you won’t want to miss this one! Also, I apologize in advance for the emotions and tears you will have by the end of this book.