The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by V.E. Schwab

Genre: Fantasy / Historical Fantasy
Published: 2020
My Rating: ★★★★★

Imagine living forever.

Now imagine that no one will ever remember you. Ever. The moment you leave their sight, you’re gone.

That premise alone was enough to pull me into The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. But what kept me reading wasn’t heartbreak in the way some of my favorite books have broken me. It was fascination.

I was completely fascinated by Addie’s life.

In 1714 France, Addie LaRue makes a desperate bargain to escape a life she doesn’t want. She asks for freedom and time. Well, she gets far more of both than she ever imagined. She cannot die. She cannot age. And she cannot be remembered.

For more than THREE HUNDRED years, Addie moves through the world as a stranger. She watches generations come and go. She sees cities change, lives through wars, crosses countries, and witnesses pieces of history most people only ever read about.

But somehow, despite being cursed to leave no direct mark on the world, Addie keeps finding loopholes. That was one of my favorite parts of this book.

She can’t tell someone her name. She can’t even write it without it getting erased.  She can’t simply demand to be remembered. So, she gets creative. She becomes an idea. An inspiration. A face in a piece of art. A presence that someone may not consciously remember but somehow carries with them anyway.

There was something incredibly satisfying about watching her refuse to let the terms of her bargain completely define what her existence could be. And then, after centuries of being forgotten, Addie walks into a bookstore.

She meets a young man.

She leaves.

And when she comes back…

He freaking remembers her!

After spending so much of the book completely accustomed to the rules of Addie’s existence, that moment immediately changed everything because now I needed to know why.

But the part I loved most was the game. Addie’s relationship with Luc was probably the most fascinating part of the entire story for me.

For centuries, the two of them circle one another. He waits for her to surrender. Addie refuses to give him the satisfaction. Their relationship shifts between antagonism, companionship, manipulation, attraction, resentment, and something that becomes increasingly difficult to define. It’s a battle of patience between two beings who have almost unlimited amounts of it.

But Addie learns. She learns Luc and his pride. She learns the rules and where those rules bend. Most importantly, she learns how to survive within a bargain designed to eventually make her give up.

Which brings me to that ending…

I won’t spoil exactly what happens, because this is one ending I think deserves to be experienced without knowing where it’s going. But I will say this:

Addie LaRue is cunning as hell.

By the final pages, I realized I had underestimated just how much three hundred years had taught her. The ending didn’t make me cry like other books I’ve read. It made me grin. Because after watching Addie spend centuries trapped inside someone else’s game, there was something deeply satisfying about realizing that maybe—just maybe—she had learned how to play it better than he expected. And I loved that.

Schwab built a story around a question that appears again and again throughout the novel: if no one can remember you, how do you prove you were ever here?

Addie’s answer isn’t simple. Being remembered isn’t only about having your name written somewhere. It’s also about influence. Art. Ideas. The tiny ways one life alters another. Or, in Addie’s case, refusing for three hundred years to disappear quietly.

Give this one a read and let me know what you think!

Storykeeper’s Verdict: A Story Worth Keeping.

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