Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

I cannot promise this review is going to be completely coherent. It is 3:30 am, and I feel compelled to write this review right now, about five minutes after I finished the book.

I genuinely think my reading experience might change how I read books. Probably not always, but I hope reading Addie will help me pay attention to future novels I encounter at the level I paid attention to this one. I wrote about how the book made me feel as I read, I underlined and made note of where I cried, I paused to think about the story (or character or syntax or word choice or setting) on almost every page, sometimes I just paused to breathe deeply and say wow. I just really cherished the reading experience of this book and want to carry some of these practices with me into the future.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue follows a girl who 'prays to the gods who only answer at night' when she is being forced into a life that will break her. It is the early 1700's in a small town in France, and Addie LaRue is terrified of dying in the same town she has lived her whole life in; after the deal made with the devil, we follow Addie's life through time and in various places as she deals with her bargain, one that left her unable to be remembered by anyone she meets. Her only constant is Luc, her name for the devil/old god/bargain maker, until a bookseller in Brooklyn named Henry meets and remembers her. I think this is what I knew going into the book, and I don't think I can say any more.

I will say that I have read most of Schwab's previous work (and am using the rest of this month of catch up. I have The Unbound, her Everyday Angles middle-grade series, and Vengeful to read.) and just genuinely love her writing. I like following an author through time, seeing how they grapple with the same topic in different forms, seeing where their mind wanders to, what new ideas they want to explore. So I went into this book with a completely open heart and assuming I would enjoy myself (this is fairly standard for me; I want to love as many books as it is possible to love. No desire to waste time on stuff I don't like), but I really truly did enjoy this reading experience.

Schwab uses this story to discuss the at times invisible nature of women in history, the nature of women as a muse in art, women as subject. She explores the tension between muse and maker, with focus on the muse as an uncredited collaborator. The story is in some ways about the distance between a person and those who observe them. The story explored aggression, exploitation, and manipulation in really interesting and varied ways. All three of our primary characters are used to explore these things in different ways. It also has some themes characteristic of most of her work; doors/pathways are featured heavily, time, gender expression, sexuality (loved the casual queerness), desire, fear, power, memory, and being remembered are all topics that come up throughout the text. I especially loved that I didn't always totally agree with an idea as it was presented in the book. Still, the book gave me an excellent opportunity to explore my own thought process and hone my own opinions.

It is also a fun story that made me laugh and cry and absolutely captivated my mind for four days. I was really truly torn between reading this book as quickly as possible and slowly savoring the experience. I ended up going with slow, but I thought about the book basically all day until I finally picked it up every night and read until tiredness won. The book isn't quite as fast or action-packed as her other work, but it is definitely an enjoyable read. I think my review has been very serious, but I genuinely did have a good time reading this book. It does my two favorite things story can do; one is being about stories, and the other would be a mild spoiler, but if you know me very well, you probably already know. It has to do with the almost end.

I was genuinely worried about how this book was going to end. There seemed to be two options, and I was unsure if I would be happy with either. But I was really satisfied by the ending, it was the kind of ending this story deserved, and I should have known better than to be worried about it. I also spend like 350 pages worried that this book was not going to cry, only to cry very frequently through the end of the book.

I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads and The StoryGraph, this is the kind of book that makes me wish there were more stars. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes stories about stories, to people who love Victoria Schwab, to people who want a fantasy that is also historical fiction and contemporary and is 'literary' as fuck, and to those who like to have their feelings messed with in a very hope punk manner.