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

Synopsis

Adeline LaRue was 23 in 1714, when she decided she'd rather sell her soul to the Darkness than marry some random dude with three kids and spend the rest of her life wearing away as a mother and wife. The Darkness grants her wish and she is given immortality and eternal youth, albeit still being human. The twist on the curse however, is that no one can remember her. Once she meets someone and goes out of sight, they forget all about her. She had asked the Darkness for freedom, for belonging to no one but herself, and he granted her as much. Her name only belongs to her and she cannot say it to anyone or write it or let the world see it in any way. 

For three hundred years, she treads the earth leaving her mark through people. Through art and music, influencing artists before being forgotten. Until one day she meets a boy who doesn't forget her. A boy who has an uncanny resemblance to the one who cursed her. Henry.

Ayo don’t waste your time and money. It’s mediocre.

Review

I have mixed feelings about this book. I have heard mixed reviews - with BookTok saying it falls into the must read category of all the famous books on TikTok, while my trusted BookTubers say they kinda hate it. When I started the book, I genuinely thought I would, for once, side with BookTok and actually love this book. The beginning felt fresh, nostalgic, the writing fit to the story and timeline. And all the similes new and breaths of fresh air. Until I realised it was 540 pages of the same thing. Of endless repetition. I felt like I aged 300 years with Adeline, and even though that might've been the goal, it wasn't something I wanted to experience. I genuinely thought this book took me two days to finish, but it took two whole weeks. By the end of it, I was exhausted, I couldn't care for it anymore. And the ending was anticlimactic. I fell in love with the Darkness and hated Adeline for being a hypocrite. I hated the book for not exploiting all the potential it had. There was so much that could've been done with Adeline's life, but the only outcome of it was some random guy (Henry) who had zero chemistry with her to write a book about her life. 

The incessant similes littering every page of the book also do get tiring after about 200 pages. It started to feel like Schwab wrote down every description that occurred to her and didn't bother filtering down her thoughts. Everything is endlessly repeated. One sentence is said at least three times, and in quick succession of one another. The repetition is constantly present, though in different syntax. Exactly as I've just done, yes. Just way longer.

Anyway, let's calm down for a second. 

One of the main themes touched on in this book is the concept of oblivion, or, put plainly, being forgotten. I've always found it a curious concept. Why do people worry so much about not leaving a mark in this world? Why is it such a bad thing to live without ever being seen, and die an unknown death? Addie, the protagonist, compared this oblivion to the Zen koan. If no one heard the tree fall, has it really fallen? Similarly, she says, "If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?" To humour you, this can be extended in real life where one can say, if it's not on social media, it never happened. As in, for instance, if you have gone somewhere or travelled and you post no pictures and nobody knows you have been anywhere, have you really gone? Have you really lived that experience? If I don't post reviews about the books I have read, have I really read them? So you see how ludicrous it is the more you dig into it.

Why do you need to be seen and acknowledged to have lived a life? 

Another aspect of this same theme would be the loneliness it brings to a person. For Addie specifically, because she cannot be remembered, she cannot form relationships. The concept of building over time is entirely erased, and that, understandably, is daunting. But then again, Addie's want for relationships seems to stem from this desire to be remembered. The same desire, voire need, to leave a mark. How true would a relationship then be if one of its main purposes for you is to leave your mark on the person, instead of building a relationship because you want the person and like them or love them, regardless of your existence? And this was so accurately depicted in her relationship with Henry. There was nothing there. She had more chemistry with the singer Toby Marsh than she did with Henry Strauss. I hated Henry so much. He had no depth, no story, no life. Adeline didn't even bother about him when she left the bookstore where he works, thinking he wouldn't remember her. She didn't look at him and wonder about him and long to be remembered by him. Their relationship was built on the fact that both sold their souls to the darkness. Both were bound by the same creature. They didn't get together because they even liked each other, and every scene with the two of them was therefore so unsettling. I talk to you because you are the only one on earth to share my predicament. I love you because only you know what it’s like to feel the same loneliness I feel, only you share the same pain I feel. Narcissism at its finest.

Although I know not how I would think if I were the one aimlessly wandering the earth for three hundred years, perhaps I would indeed be desperate to leave a mark because I cannot be remembered. Perhaps I, too, would cling to Henry because he is the only human who could remember me, even though there is no natural chemistry between us both. But, I have lived less than a quarter of a century, and if I were to be forgotten by the entire world, I would be fine. I do not long to be remembered. There is a certain peace that comes with knowing you cannot be known. A certain kind of peace you cannot find when your mind is riddled with thoughts of what other people are thinking of you, which is, actually, something that so many of us struggle with. Haven't you ever wondered how many hours in a day you spend thinking about other people? How much of your life decisions are based on how others will perceive you? What if you were to live for yourself? What if the only opinion that mattered was yours? How different, how much better would your life be if your anxiety only came from what you thought of yourself?

You spend your days whiling away in worry of the other. And not just other people, but other people in relation to you. Whether you've made a good enough impression on someone you wanted to like you. Whether they still remember the day you tripped or said something embarrassing. Whether they’ll think you’re cool or better than them. Does it all not rob you of peace? 

Another part of the book that bothered me was how at some point Schwab started mentioning the people who marked history with their art, like Shakespeare and Beethoven. Turning the deaths of great minds to something so pathetic was utterly disrespectful. The way that Schwab twisted the death of Beethoven, making him into this vulnerable man clutching the music that he would not have made without the Darkness, is crossing a line. As if great works, great minds, art and poetry that transcends time and appeals to minds across centuries, cannot exist without the Darkness, without what is evil and inhuman. As if humans alone are not capable of greatness. As if they needed to strike a deal with the devil to create what we are still enamoured by. As if we who are rapt by this art are only rapt because we are enchanted or something, and not because we can recognise true art in all its beauty. I think that woman just insulted all of humanity. 

I also don't like how the darkness treats Adeline as if she's so special when we're never shown how she is. She just dawdles, wandering through life with no aim, no purpose. Passing time at her leisure because she has so much of it. She does nothing, she is nothing. She isn't clever, and yet she is constantly told that she is. For what? For accidentally stumbling on the edges of her curse and realising she can make the world remember her in some twisted way? How is that clever? Especially when you’re spent three hundred years here. 

Duh. 

Something I liked was the idea of never being ready to die, even when you think you are, even when you call to Death. I think it is true. I can't speak for everyone, but from the accounts of the various lives I have encountered and the things I have seen and lived, it holds true in my world. Death is so sought after, and yet, when he comes, you want to ask for a little more time. Not yet. I wasn't ready. This isn't what I wanted. I suppose when you see the face of Death, the loneliness that wraps itself around your soul in his presence, you back out of your wish. I don't think Death is what anyone wants, because why would you want something you don't even know the nature of? Who would call to the unknown and name it desire? 

To wrap it all up, it was an exhausting book. Beautiful at times, explaining the various tabs that mark several pages, but exhausting nonetheless. I didn't feel connected to the characters. I wasn't enchanted by Henry or by Remy or Sam or anyone Adeline ever liked. The stories weren't fleshed out enough. We weren't told why we should like them. Only why they're likeable because they can help Adeline leave her mark. The connections between the characters felt forced, lacking in chemistry, meaningless. Especially the one between Adeline and Henry. I would've much preferred the development of a true kind of love between Adeline and the Darkness. I thought there was chemistry there from the start, but of course it had to be ruined for some petty mortal with no life.

Anyway. Eh book. 3.4/10

Toodles babes xo