Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
The Book: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
The Blurb: 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. (blurb courtesy of GoodReads)
The Review:
It was a great premise, but… How many times have you said this about a novel? I mean how can you resist a premise like ‘World-class super spy forced undercover as a beloved retirement home granny.” (Not real, but should be.) It’s easy to get hooked by a great idea but too often after the first surge, the premise runs dry, then sputters along repeating the same emotional beats until it reaches a predictable ending.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab is a master class in how to carry a premise to its full potential. At well over 400 pages this is no small book but the premise remains fresh from start to finish. Here’s why:
First, Schwab starts with an intriguing idea: A young woman makes a deal to live forever but to leave no mark or memory. Completely original. So much to explore.
Second, Schwab holds back. She studies each challenge and triumph like a flower, letting readers enjoy the interweaving vines as they grow. The love interest doesn’t come into the book until deep into the first third. The passion for art plays out even more slowly. Secrets and suspicions bloom organically while Adie learns to live in her new life across centuries. Just when the bloom of one plot point fades, another blooms that we hadn’t even realized was growing.
Third, Schwab knows how to work the plot twist. Lots of books have explored immortality - none in this way. The challenges of not being able to leave a mark (i.e. no job, no home, no relationships) are unique; Schwab’s solutions are not what you expect. There’s always a new twist: unexpected cracks in the curse, an evolving relationship with the dark antagonist, an equally cursed love interest exploring the cracks in his own curse. All of it defies predictability.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a novel with a premise that truly pays off and I can’t wait to read more like it.
Pick up a copy on Amazon or Indiebound.
Up Next On Betsy’s To Be Read Shelf:The Library Book by Susan Orlean
