Book Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Mar 02, 2022 at 02:00 pm by Ms.Shelly_booklady


The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by V.E. Schwab (Tor Books, October 2020).

 I love stories. I love sweeping novels that take you to faraway places and through history. I love a story that delves deep into a few characters, where you see their nuanced personalities and emotions.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a recent publication (2020) that received a lot of hype! It’s a New York Times Best Seller and has over a half a million ratings on Goodreads. Several of my friends had read the book, so I decided to see what all the hype was about!

Adelaide LaRue is born in 1690 in a small village in France. She’s a creative, curious young girl that longs to travel and adventure. She does not want to get married. She avoids marriage until she is 23 and then a young woman in her village dies and leaves a man alone with three young children. The town expects her to step in and marry him and help him. Her parents set up the marriage. In a desperate attempt to avoid the marriage, Addie runs into the woods to bargain with “the old gods” to rescue her. Even though her eccentric older friend, Estelle, has warned her never to pray to the gods at night, she doesn’t realize that dusk is slipping to night and she’s praying to the “gods of night” instead. A shadow appears and makes her a deal, she asks for freedom in exchange for her soul. He wants a time limit on the deal, but she only agrees until she doesn’t want her soul any more.

Immediately she realizes he’s tricked her. He makes it so no one remembers her. As soon as they walk away from her, they forget her completely. Her parents don’t remember her, or her friends, or anyone she meets. She can’t have a house, a job, or any relationships. The early years are hard, scary, and painful but she still enjoys the freedom that she’s asked for. But she calls it a curse.

 Every year the shadow returns to ask her if she’s done, but she never relents. She sees it as a curse, but now it is a game. She’s stubborn.

 Fast forward, she meets a boy and falls in love. But I slowly started to realize the whole book is not about their love story but about Addie and the “Shadow god”. It’s about the game they are playing (which gets really twisted and weird in places). She wins some and loses others but the stakes are a bit vague. A soul in this book just seems to be a life. That even though there are these gods and powers and principalities, there seems to be no heaven and no hell and no forever. Characters just die and that’s it. There is no redemption. No salvation. Nothing. Even the love in this book is wrought with selfishness and only focused on pleasure.

The scenes through history are also a bit weak. She could have gone to so many places, talked about so many historical events. The only one I really enjoyed was her watching Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. Many reviewers on Goodreads also pointed out that the bulk of her “flashbacks” focus on white historical characters and scenes from a small region of Europe and they are almost always focused on sex. There are obviously so many interesting historical occurrences and places from 1690-2014 that the author could have focused on!

 Overall, I did enjoy reading this book. The story is compelling; it just fell a bit flat for me. I don’t want to spoil it for any readers that do want to read it, and this is definitely a book that many other people have enjoyed. So maybe you will disagree with me. There is a twist at the end so maybe that bit of information will pique your interest!

 If you enjoyed The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, you might also like The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow.

 Until next time, happy reading!

Shelly is a mother of four girls who loves to read, craft, cook, and travel. Follow her on instagram for more book reviews @Ms.Shelly_Booklady