The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - Book Review and Tour Recap
V.E. Schwab is probably my favorite author (I read a lot so it’s really hard to settle on favorites sometimes!) and it’s pretty safe to say this was my most anticipated book of 2020. My expectations were sky high and after reading the first 10 pages I knew they had been met. The book is around 450 pages and I read it entirely in one day. I could not put it down and I keep wondering if it’s too soon for a re-read.
Warning: This post will have very light spoilers. I won’t discuss major plot twists or the ending, but if you want to avoid any spoilers at all feel free to skip down to the tour recap.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue follows our protagonist Addie from 1700s France to modern day NYC. She sees wars and revolutions. She experiences luxuries and poverty. She inspires countless works of art, but through all of that she is remembered by no one. At the age of 23 living in provincial France she strikes a desperate deal with the devil that allows her to live forever but be immediately forgotten by everyone she meets. She struggles (and occasionally thrives) through 300 years of life and then one day she steals a book and the bookseller remembers her when she returns to the shop the next day.
Addies life changes entirely when she meets Henry. Every relationship she’s had previously has been like living a single day on repeat. She may spend time with someone every day for months, but to the other person it’s the first time they’ve met her. At the beginning of the book you can feel Addie’s weariness and how much it weighs on her to constantly re-introduce herself to someone she’s been dating for months. As the reader, I felt so much relief and hopefulness the first time she wakes up next to Henry and sees that he still remembers her. Of course it’s not going to be all rainbows and sunshine from there. As we learn more about Addie’s past and her relationship with Luc, the devil who granted her this existence, we see the complexity of her feelings toward him as well as her desire for a place that’s hers and a companion for more than a few hours. We also discover what happened in Henry’s life that leads him to be able to remember her.
Schwab walks the line perfectly between atmospheric and engaging. I, personally, love the writing of Erin Morgenstern. The Night Circus and The Starless Sea are both two of my favorite books of all time, but Morgenstern’s writing has been polarizing to some who feel that the more flowery and lyrical style of writing led to a lack of movement in the plot and excitement within the story. I think those who wanted to like her books, but found themselves disappointed at the pacing or subtlety of the plot will find what they were looking for in Addie. I’ve seen some reviews say that the plot was slow, but I think that it’s always working toward something. The parts set in the past are showing how Addie got to where she is today and why she hasn’t seen Luc in 30 years and the present is full of the excitement of meeting Henry and what it means to her to finally have someone in her life that remembers her if they leave the room.
I think that Addie can be enjoyed by lovers of fantasy as well as those who are new to the genre. Especially those intimidated by giant tomes full of maps and unrecognizable names/terms. The characters are complex, the world is familiar but with exciting twists, and the story is just stunning. I obviously rated this one 5/5 stars.
V.E. Schwab book tour
I attended the virtual book tour for Adde LaRue on Friday, October 9th. This was the event hosted by my favorite bookstore One More Page Books in Arlington, VA and featuring Schwab’s friend and only beta reader Patricia Riley.
She spent a lot of time discussing the process of writing Addie. It was a book that she got the idea for ages ago but she just knew she wasn’t ready to write it yet so it’s been in the background of all of her other books. She said, “Every now and then you get an idea and you know oh, I only get to do this once” so she needed to do it right and it happened to take 10 years. It was almost so precious to her that she didn’t want to write it, but then she realized that she was going to die if she didn’t write it and she needed to get it done. Each phase of the process was years of angst and worrying that what she had in her head would not be able to transfer as well as she wanted to the page.
V views Addie as the biggest book of her career. 2020 was intended to be “a year long celebration of a decade of work”, but obviously the world had other plans. However, as Patricia pointed out this is exactly the type of book people need right now to help them escape from everything happening in the world around them.
In describing her characters she says that Henry is the most like her and the character she really put herself and her fears into. She describes him as “the person I would’ve been if I hadn’t found writing”. She talks about how her intention for Luc, in making him an old god/devil character was to make him be more of a petulant child than an omnipotent void. That perspective on his character can really shape how you view his interactions with Addie and the choices he makes regarding her throughout the story.
Schwab has been writing the script for Addie which she says is rather freeing because she’s able to get out of her own way a bit. In writing a book she can hyperfocus on each syllable, but with screenwriting she is mostly tasked with hading over the heart of the story and then it’s up to the directors/actors to interpret and portray it further.
She also spoke a bit on the process of historical research for this book. It spans hundreds of years and multiple continents so it’s quite different from other fantasy stories where she can create the world. She did visit every site mentioned in the book and thought “if i only had a paragraph to convey every city. How would I do it?”.
In the end, she opted for creating things that aren’t real and folding them in with things that are to combine the two and making the reader think they’re all real. She aimed to create specificity of place even in modern day NYC. She said you may be shocked to know which places Addie visits are real and which are not. She says even with her research and that of all the editors there was still a mistake that went unnoticed until ARCs came out which was a visit to Sacre-Coeur before it actually existed (that has since been changed).
It was a really fun night and I thoroughly enjoyed my first virtual book tour experience! The tour is still going through the 18th so check out www.irememberaddie.com if you want more details.
