Book Review for "The Invisible Life of Addie Larue" by V.E. Schwab

SYNOPSIS:

A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.

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.

GENRE: Fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Romance, New Adult

RATING: 2.5/5 stars

The "Invisible Life of Addie Larue" is a tale of a French girl from the 18th century who prays to the gods after dark and makes a Faustian bargain to be free from the constraints placed upon women. However, like a true Monkey's Paw tale, her wish is misconstrued and she is cursed to live forever and to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Her wish to be free from any worldly constraints also makes her unable to leave any sort of mark on the world and in essence she is cursed to live a lonely existence, forgotten by her friends and family as well as anyone she ever meets.

Oh booktok... how you've disappointed me once again. Where should I even begin with this review? Like "From Blood and Ash" and "Kingdom of the Wicked", I picked up "The Invisible Life of Addie Larue" after seeing the amount of hype it was getting on tiktok. After not learning my lesson with Kingdom of the Wicked, I decided to give this book a try. No way total strangers on the internet could get things wrong twice. Right? However, as it turned out, this book was a complete miss for me. I desperately wanted to like it, and if not for how good everybody was saying it was I would have probably stopped halfway through. It felt like it was just 442 pages of nothing (no seriously, what was I supposed to gain from this?). I was promised dazzling adventures, but instead got Addie and Henry prancing through New York city for what felt like 100 pages. The extraordinary life of Addie Larue was such a false advertisement because her life felt very ordinary to me (except for the whole living forever thing, and people never remembering her). If the entirety of this book had been like the first half, my rating would probably be way higher. However, the second half of the book went downhill (pretty much once Henry showed up) and just ruined the whole book for me. But enough of my personal rant, let's get into the good, the bad, and the mediocre.

The good:

1. The writing. Again, like "Kingdom of the Wicked" I actually thought the writing and prose in this book was really good. There were a couple times when it got a little too purple prosy for me (like there was a random part in the novel where what felt like a poem was just randomly inserted). But aside from that, I thought the writing was really beautiful. I think V.E Schwab is an amazing writer.

2. The idea. I thought the idea behind Addie Larue was super unique. A girl who is destined to be forgotten by everyone she meets is such a unique and amazing idea. Any book that includes some kind of Faustian bargain gets an immediate thumbs up from me. However, I felt like V.E. Schwab didn't really take full advantage of this idea. So much could have been done with this idea, but instead it delved into a mediocre love story between Henry and Addie. We were getting the same story of how Addie kept being forgotten by everyone, and after a while I felt like I was reading the same thing over again where she meets someone, they hook up, she's forgotten the next day. Repeat.

3. Luc. Maybe I've gotten too used to enemies to lover plotline in books I read now, but I wanted so badly for the book to focus on Luc and Addie's relationship rather than Henry and Addie. I was practically begging for more of Luc's deviousness and cunningness. He made such an interesting character and my personal opinion is that this book would have been even more interesting if there was more of him. He was genuinely this book's saving grace, and the only reason I included the 0.5 in my rating.

The bad:

1. Henry. Henry had to be the most BORING and DRY love interest in the history of leads written. I really disliked reading about him and Addie because there was nothing that built up to it. Zero angst, zero banter, zero longing. They just met and immediately got together. Also, Henry has the personality of a dry toast, the only thing he had going for him was his brown curls. He just wasn't doing it for me, and it was so obvious they were only interested in each other because they both gave each other something no one else could. It was the main focus during the second half of the book, and it bored me to absolute tears.

2. The twist for why Henry could remember Addie wasn't much of a twist. Also it was revealed so early on I felt like there was nothing else to be waiting for.

3. Addie. Addie is about 300 years old and she acts like a literal teenager. I would expect someone who is that old to have the wisdom of my grandmother but it just felt like all Addie was doing for 300 years was moping about how she's always forgotten by everyone she meets. After finishing the book I felt like I knew next to nothing about her. I legitimately couldn't tell you anything about her personality. It just felt like she was a blank slate. Henry certainly didn't bring out any fun personality in her (if anything she was her driest when she was with him). The only time when she had any semblance of a personality was when she was with Luc.

4. The lack of Luc. I mean what a travesty amirite??! He was not mentioned enough, and I will forever be salty about that.

5. The mentions of freckles. What purpose did her 7 freckles serve exactly? I thought it was going to play such a huge role with the amount of times it was mentioned. It's even included on the cover of the book. It felt like a lot of buildup and hints just for it to serve zero purpose.

6. The amount of navel gazing that was happening. Oh my, this book was trying so hard to be deep. Her contemplations served zero purpose and sometimes it was just chapters of Addie contemplating her life and how much it sucked. She thought about Estelle for three chapters and each time she was reminiscing the same memory. Again while the writing was beautiful, there is only a certain amount of internal and self pitying monologue one can take.

7. How many descriptions of Henry and Addie prancing around NYC did we need? I've never skipped a book faster than when I was on those chapters. It was just dragging on and on, and the writing was just too poetic for my liking during those parts. I genuinely was ready to call it quits but then I read a reviewthat was praising the ending so I trudged on (really could have saved myself though, the ending was okay and not as emotional as I was expecting)

8. More could have been done with Addie's past life. All we got was just tales of her past lovers. I would have loved to hear about how she was a spy during World War II (or was it WWI?), but it was just mentioned and glazed over.

The mediocre:

1. I liked how it addressed mental health in regards to Henry. While I was bored during those chapters, I did actually feel sorry for him, and felt like all the emotions and self loathing he was feeling is something a lot of people could probably relate to. However, while relatable, it was also very boring and for that reason it didn't make as huge of an impact on me.

Overall this book was a letdown. It just did not do it for me, and that happens sometimes sadly. The writing was amazing though so it had that going for it at least.

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