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

 

Summary (from the publisher): 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.

Review: "It's sad, of course, to forget. But it is a lonely thing to be forgotten, to remember, when no one else does."

Addie LaRue is born in a small town in France and dreams of a life bigger than her town and family have to offer her. When she is in her early 20s in 1714, she is pressured to marry, and in desperation, makes a deal with a shadowy devil figure that she ultimately calls Luc, to be free from obligation. But she doesn't realize the full extent of the terms of her deal. She is free - and totally anonymous. No one she knows and loves remembers her, in fact, no one can remember her from day to day. She cannot write or leave a mark, cannot rent a room or buy a house, hold down a job. But she is free from obligations and immortal. And thus begins three hundred years of anonymously drifting through life without love or attachments. Until she meets a boy in a bookstore who does remember her. And it changes everything. 

This was such an intriguing premise for a book. This is an obvious Faustian bargain tale, with Addie making a deal with a devil and blindly failing to realize that what she is surrendering - love and attachments to others - is worth far more than what she is gaining. I know Addie didn't truly know what she was agreeing to, but it just felt like a foolish, overwrought move that she had been explicitly warned against to agree to the stranger's offer. In short, I had a hard time suspending my disbelief. 

 I really struggled with this book. I found it very slow for the first third or more of the novel. Due to the anonymity of Addie's life, her life is aimless and without meaning, and unfortunately that is also the way the novel reads for chapters on end. I also felt that the author could have done so many cool things with Addie being alive for so many historical events over multiple centuries! Instead, she just mentions in passing that she knew various famous historical figures or remembers when certain things happen. 

I also struggled with the reality that at heart, this novel really only had three characters: Addie, David, and Luc, since no one else remembers or really knows Addie. It made the world of the novel feel incredibly limited. I also questioned the attachment between Addie and David. If they both are ultimately together because of the bargain they each have made, how do they even know they are really drawn to each other and not just drawn to each out of desperation and no other options? Luc was intriguing but such a shadowy and mysterious figure without any real explanation and it was hard for me to accept he was just this magical devil/God figure. 

I am in the minority in not loving this book. I have read so many glowing reviews of this novel and know many rank it among their favorite novels. Perhaps it was just overhyped for me, but it fell short of my expectations, and I struggled to make it through this. 

Stars: 3