Science Fiction and Fantasy Fridays: THE INVISBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE by V.E. Schwab
Jamie @ Books and Ladders
23 October
4 Comments
Science Fiction and Fantasy Fridays introduces readers who are unfamiliar with the Adult SF/F genre to books, authors, and discussions all about the vast expanse of the world of Adult SF/F!
THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE
Series: N/A
Source: Purchased from Audible; eARC from Publisher
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: October 6, 2020
Summary:
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.
Purchase:
I have never been so blown away by a story before, where I wanted to savour every moment and make sure I was truly listening and understanding every word on the page. I loved that this was a flash between history and the present, the touches of magic, and the way that everything intertwined. I had some issues with the pacing and some of the choices even though they made "sense" in the end but overall, I highly recommend this one.
I loved Addie's story and Addie herself. I liked how seemlessly both of our main characters being bisexual was put into the story - making it a complete non-issue. I thought Addie was a really strong character and I liked seeing how she went from innocence to doing what she must to survive. She was the perfect character to follow through this story and I loved seeing how she was able to leave her mark, something I think we all fear not being able to do.
While this is definitely a slower paced novel, there are so many beautiful moments that it seems to just fly by. I think the audiobook is over 17 hours and it felt like I read it in 5 because it was so lyrical and magical. While there is the typical "flowery" prose in parts of this, I didn't mind it for the most part. There were some times that it caused a bit of a break in the reality of the world for me, which meant I had to relisten to some parts or just try to figure it out from some context.
I also just didn't like Henry as a whole. I thought he was not the most interesting person that Addie was with, or wanted to be with. And I understand why he was involved but it felt like Addie made poor choices because of him and that felt out of character. But his choices were worse and I thought he was kind of boring overall. I didn't like his sections nearly as much and wished I could have skipped over them tbh.
But truly everything else was wonderful. You could really tell that this was the book of Victoria's heart and that she had been holding onto this for years. I think this may be my favourite read of hers (yet) and I can't wait to recommend it to more people. An easy way to get into fantasy with its mix of historical fiction and contemporary issues, this is the perfect book for everyone.
TLDR: Gosh Victoria writes such beautiful stories and I'm so glad Addie was one of them. I did have a few issues with characterizations and pacing, but overall I truly enjoyed this one. I especially like that this is a standalone and had a bit of an open ending to allow us to create the rest of the world. I liked the vignettes interlaced throughout and the magic that was weaved around all of this while still making it mostly historical and contemporary fiction.
