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

 

If someone asked me to rate this book, I would give it a 10000/10000 if possible. This book touched not only on how unpredictable life is. It touched on family, chance encounters, regrets that never leave you be, the cruelty of life, the guilt and heartache after making a wrong decision. There are many different opinions of what the final life lesson of this book was. I felt the final lesson was there are no second chances in life sometimes. Once you make a decision to risk everything for one thing (a gambler’s mindset is a good example), you’re trapping yourself in a dead end. 

 

A brief summary of this book is Addie makes a deal with the devil (a bad god) to avoid marrying someone she doesn’t love, to be able to live out her dreams and wishes. She asks for more time. The god tricks her and she is cursed because of the deal. She can live forever as an immortal at the cost of being forgotten by everyone she creates a bond with. Everyone she crosses paths with forgets her with a close of a door or by leaving a room. That is until Addie meets Henry who remembers her and later on revealed that he also made a deal with the exact same god. 

 

This book’s setting was so beautiful painted, every scene and every city mentioned in this book was like an oil painting, fragile and graceful. The way the author writes of Addie’s time in New York was so breathtaking, I could smell the pastries, taste the coffee, smell the streets during the time. Such a vivid style of writing that reminded me why I love this author’s writing style so much. 

 

One thing that I thought this story lacked was character development. I would have liked to see more of Henry’s backstory. I felt that every single chapter was very repetitive with Addie reminiscing her past experiences and her reintroducing herself to Henry’s friends. Long story short, I felt she was still the same girl in the beginning of the story to a certain extent. I actually found the scenes of when Addie goes back to her hometown every time to be more emotional and enjoyable to read than some parts of the book. I cried more when Addie’s parents looked at Addie like a stranger every time she went back to see them. The agony of standing in front of your own parents and them not knowing you are their child is heart wrenching to me probably because I’ve been in that position. 

 

A theme I enjoyed in the book was the topic of immortality. I feel there aren’t enough books that touch on that, there are a few but not as deeply as this book does. Immortality is a gift and a curse. You get to live forever, you get to experience history happen in front of you through the ages first handed, and you also suffer the most losses. Losses in the sense of you watch everyone you love, things that you care about decay and die out. Time means nothing to you and the nights never seemed longer in this book for Addie. No one is perfect and everyone has their own sufferings regardless if they are immortal or just normal human beings. 

 

The other theme I really savored in this book was how Addie keeps getting forgotten so easily by others because of her curse. It reminded me a lot of the world we live in today where everyone is in a rush and we brush shoulders with easily a 100 people a day when we are out and about. Have you ever had that one moment, that one chance encounter where you looked up on the train or on the street and caught the eye of that one person where you felt that connection with? And when you finally turn back to take a second glance, they’re gone into the sea of people. You wonder if you’ll ever see them again. You wonder if they felt that same spark and if they are wondering the same thing. Or how about a scenario where you had a nice conversation with a complete stranger on the train or at a coffee shop while in line and then you parted ways without exchanging contact information. You’re left wondering if you’ll ever see them again and regret not exchanging numbers. You wonder if you left a mark on them to make them remember you one day down the road. This book is all about making an effort to leave a mark on the world, on the people that matter to you. We all want to be remembered when we are gone, don’t we? 

 

Overall, I love this book to death just for the themes that were discussed alone. It holds a dear place in my heart. I would recommend it to everyone. I just felt that some chapters were not needed because the writer didn’t expand enough on why certain things needed to be said. The book could have been a little more condensed. I skimmed over some later chapters in the book and I never do that unless I felt it was getting a bit sidetracked. Bottom line is, this isn’t her best book but it’s definitely a good book by her. I loved it enough to overlook its flaws.