A woman with her freedom on the line, a man struggling to find solid footing in his life and the devil that connects them both shape a story that left me with one lingering question. I finished “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” by V.E. Schwab wondering: How much is a soul worth?
The story combines my two favorite genres, historical fiction and fantasy, in a tale that explores the balance of love, life and loneliness whether you have all the time in the world or none at all.
More importantly, it’s a tale of endurance through art; how memories and people can be lost but their ideas remain.
The story mainly follows Addie LaRue, who was born in the small village of Villon, France in 1691. She values her independence above all else, but that fierce free will is threatened when she is forced to wed into a life she doesn’t want.
In an act of desperation, she runs away, begging the old gods for anything to help, and cursing them when they don’t answer.
The last rays of sunlight fade. The search party closes in. There’s nothing she can do to escape. And then something answers her call in the darkness.
Now, Addie has made a deal with a dark god, granting her immortality but cursed to never be remembered. She embarks on a lonely road of trading roots for wings and long-term love for long-term life, often questioning it along the way and more when her toxic relationship with the dark god evolves.
Three hundred years later, Henry Strauss is working for next to nothing at a small bookstore in New York City. He recently dropped out of grad school, much to the disappointment of his parents, and struggles to move on after the end of a relationship he put his soul into. He has secrets of his own, living a life where nobody sees him for who he is, trapped in an invisible life of his own. At least, until he meets Addie LaRue, and is the first person in three hundred years who remembers her.
One of my favorite parts about this story is the idea of the memory of people versus the memory of ideas. For Addie, each section in the book exhibits a famous artifact from history inspired by her, even if the artist doesn’t remember her. So is she entirely forgotten, or does something more powerful than memory remain even when the history is erased?
I will admit, I didn’t love this book as much as I’d hoped I would. The pacing was slow, and I often found myself wishing the plot throughout Addie’s life gave a more historic perspective. There are seemingly more pages than what befits the plot at times, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t enjoyable, it just felt underdeveloped.
I would give this book three stars out of five. I removed one star for how the story felt underdeveloped, and another because I struggled to envision Addie as a fully-fleshed character. She was often described as an enchanting person, who people quickly fell in love with, but I didn’t feel much personality from her. Excluding the ending, it often felt more as if the story was happening to her, rather than the story happening because of her.
Despite my rating, I wouldn’t call it a bad story, it just wasn’t to my taste. There were lots of poetic quotes and interesting ideas about what makes life meaningful, and I think this would have been a good, quiet read for a rainy day. It had too many smaller issues for me to call it well-written, but it’s still beautifully written. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a slower, quaint love story that touches on the longevity of art compared to the frailty of life.
