The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

This book has been three days of emotional turmoil for me. I've loved it, I've hated it, I've been excited by it, furious at it, bored stiff and completely captivated! And finally, utterly and totally heartbroken. (A quick side note about the very poor editing. So many words missing, or extra words that I noticed. And continuity errors! Just one example is that she drapes her coat over a kitchen chair, but later mentions that there are no kitchen chairs! Also, at one point she's talking with someone in the kitchen, then in the next sentence she stands from the bed??? It drove me mad!!!) I love Addie LaRue. I am awestruck at the resilience and strength she has. If I were her, I'd have surrendered my soul to the devil on the first night is Paris. She has a hunger to live and be free that is intoxicating. And she's not the only character that I loved. Even the fleeting ones were deep and lovable. The writing is so beautiful. I love Schwab's style! She pulls you into the scene and it's so easy to feel everything the characters are feeling. It's an emersive experience. Plot is where the book stumbles a little for me. The main plot, Addie making a deal with a God for her soul and the other main plot points (which I won't spoil), is wonderful!!! I loved every second. But there were far, far too many bits in between. I think this book could have been at least 100 pages shorter and you'd still get the entire experience without the parts that drag and make you wonder why everyone is saying such wonderful things about this book!! But you get past those parts, the main plot takes over and... I shattered. I completely shattered, I'm still crying, I may be crying for a while. It's absolutely devistating and yet stunningly beautiful. I will, happily, read this book again in a few year and still cry my eyes out! At least the second time I'll know to have tissues at the ready! I have a couple more of the authors books on my shelf, unread, and I'm really looking forward to them now!

Vale muitoo a pena, essa edição é linda, capa aveludada e com toques metálicos e a escrita da V.E. Schwab é contagiante, recomendo demais!

This book was absolutely incredible. I am a fan of Schwab’s other work, so I was extremely excited about ‘The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue’, especially as Schwab has talked on multiple occasions about it being a book that really means a lot to her. I went in with high expectations and yet somehow it exceeded every one of them. I absolutely adored every moment of this book - it took me through such a range of emotions and utterly broke my heart. It kept me guessing until the end, as I never truly knew exactly what was going to happen next, despite my constant guessing. This book is beautiful, the characters are incredible and this is definitely one of the most compelling books I have ever read. This is a very character driven book, and Addie as a character is wonderful, because she is flawed. She spends her life forgotten, and so she has picked up a lot of bad habits in order to survive. I really liked the fact that Addie is not perfect, because she is a reflection of human existence. She has gone through so much and yet never loses her love for art, or for life. She has goes through the best and worst of human existence, and still finds joy in the world. She finds something new, and I feel like we all need a bit of Addie in our lives to remind us that joy can be found in the strangest of places. There are so many incredible characters in this book, predominately Henry the person who remembers her and Luc, the devil who cursed her. But each person that Addie meets adds a new layer to the story, and a new outlook and insight into this world. Each chapter was a new exploration, a new idea, explored through encounters with the people surrounding Addie. The plot seems like a simple ‘person sold their soul to the devil to live forever’ kind of story, but it is so much more than that. There is so much to this book, but it is best left discovered in your own time. This book starts slow, in that it slowly pulls you into its rhythm, flipping backwards and forwards in time between events that all build upon each other. This creates the feeling that it’s weaving you into the story, dropping hints here and there until you’re so caught up in what will happen next that you can’t think of much else and don’t want to stop reading. This is definitely a book that will stay with me for a long time, and keeps haunting my thoughts. ‘The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue’ is thought provoking, and brings up a lot of thoughts about the nature of existence and what it means to live. Can we really live without making a mark on the world, or is it the impression we have on others that makes us real? I wasn’t expecting this book to raise a lot of philosophical questions, and make me rethink the nature of existence, relationship with art and the meaning of life but it did! It made me think a lot about my own insecurities about life, being forgotten and the n...

This story is not going to be for everyone. I think it is going to be a love it or hate it with little in between for most. I found it fascinating with the beautiful prose and interesting way that Addie came to see her life. I for the most part enjoyed this tale of a girl trapped at twenty-three with no way to leave a mark on the world and forgotten by anyone who meets her in the blink of an eye. ***“...it is sad, of course, to forget. But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten. To remember when no one else does.”*** Adeline longed for adventure as a child. She begged her father to travel with him and see the other cities and was allowed to until she reached an age when she should be thinking of other things like being a wife and mother. But Addie wanted so much more than that. On the day of a wedding she never wanted Addie makes a deal with one of the gods after dark. The gods of the night are not kind and the one she made a deal with wants her soul. ***“I am stronger than your god and older than your devil. I am the darkness between stars, and the roots beneath the earth. I am promise, and potential, and when it comes to playing games, I divine the rules, I set the pieces, and I choose when to play.”*** With a deal struck Addie will not age, she will feel pain but it will not stick, hunger but she will not waste away. Still the cruelty of it is that she cannot draw or write or do anything that might leave a mark on the word herself. She is forgotten by everyone around her and it will be just like that for three hundred years, until she meets a boy who says three words…I remember you. This is much a character study more than anything else. We follow Addie in her life past and present to learn the full scope of her story. How she went from the child begging in the woods to the woman no one remembers. But Addie has found a way to leave her mark in songs, stories, drawings and paintings. She is the muse that is not remembered, not really but hinted at and almost captured in moments. ***“The first mark she left upon the world, long before she knew the truth, that ideas are so much wilder than memories, that they long and look for ways of taking root”*** The Dark has been her fickle companion through the years popping in to see if she is done with this life and ready to surrender her soul to him. Addie never falters, she never gives but he is the only one that remembers her and in her years alone she finds they are much the same. Let’s just say their relationship is complicated and full of history. Henry, ah how I love our broken Henry. He is the first person in three-hundred years to see Addie and remember her. The only person that she can say her name to. Addie sees the real Henry too and it is something he hasn’t had for a while. I do love how broken yet sweet our Henry is. ***“I se...

This book continued to grow on me as I read more, drawing me in with each additional chapter. At times the back and forth time period storytelling was annoying, and long (I admit, there is a lot of backstory that I could have gone without) BUT how else are you supposed to portray a life lived over 300 years? It wasn’t until Addie met Henry that I was really sucked in. Be patient, it too will happen to you. I also found myself in an odd dynamic with Luc and her relationship. It’s one you shouldn’t like but it’s a familiar one that grows on you, one that you can come to find you might actually enjoy. However, it was the ending that really set the fifth star for me. I admit, I was a mess, with tears dripping of my face. And the story could have ended differently, a million different endings (like Henry tried to do) but the love, the sacrifice, the memories, the patience and the game…all combined to an ending that should happen as it is written.