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

Title: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Author: V.E. Schwab

Rating:  (3.5/5)

Publication Date: October 6, 2020

Publisher: Tor Books

Source: Personal Purchase for Book Club

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.

Ok, so being that so many people had raved about this book on bookstagram, many saying that it brought them to tears and such, I decided to have this be my first V.E. Schwab book (ya, I know, I’m a bit behind in reading the more “popular” authors’ work). I really really wanted to love this one, but, uh, it fell short…by a lot.

The premise for this was so strong, I mean, Addie gets to live forever and you watch as she encounters the changing world, and dealing with people who will never remember her. With this in mind, I really didn’t care for the flashbacks of her life, which I thought was a huge part but really I thought it took away from the story (sorry).

The beginning was slow.as.heck. Oh my gosh if I didn’t make it to page 200 where I found it picked up, this would have been a DNF or a ‘come back to later’ book, but really I pushed through it since this is the first book that my Book Club chose to read for the year.

Addie and Henry were OK; I disliked Henry more and really I could have done without him 🤷🏻‍♀️Addie was a ‘no shit’ type person, but there were off points to her. Now, the “villain” Luc? Yes, I loved him and I would like 10 of him please👌🏼

Overall, I thought I would have liked this more, and while I can see how people really enjoyed it, this one was not for me. It a beautiful book and the ending took me slightly by surprise, but it fell flat.