I was messaging with a friend and we were trading book recommendations a few weeks ago. I recommended she read Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, and she recommended V.E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. She has been really enjoying listening to audiobooks while walking, but I am still a paper person and was able to get a very quick turnaround on my library reserve. I otherwise went in cold – my friend’s recommendation is that it was a really compelling story with a bit of romance and a bit of fantasy.
The basic concept of the book was really quite interesting – what would happen if absolutely nobody could recognize you once you were out of their sight? Not just your face, but if your name couldn’t be said aloud or written down? How would you get money to eat, or find a place to live? What would it be like to be so utterly alone? Addie LaRue makes a deal with the devil to escape an unwanted marriage, and like all deals made with the far or gods, doesn’t exercise enough care with her words and finds herself both immortal and impermanent in many ways. The book jumps to various periods over her 300 year life, but spends quite a bit of time on her time in New York City in 2014, where she meets someone who can actually remember her after all this time.
One of the beliefs Addie has is that even though nobody can remember her as a person, ideas are wild and sometimes she can leave a mark via inspiring an idea in an artist. This is quite a lovely thought and captures the essence of the plot in many ways. If Schwab had been able to come up with characters that could carry that along, this would have been a 5 star review for me. However, there are really only three main characters in the novel, and none of them are particularly substantive. Addie and Luc (her devil/god wish granter) fare the best of the three, but most of Luc’s allure is tied up with his mystery and cruel attention laced with what is possibly love for Addie. Addie is pretty (obviously), curious about the world and strong willed, but both seem to be a bit slight as characters, to me. The worst is Henry, the modern day man Addie gets involved with. There is no there there with him; he looks like the man Addie has always dreamed of, he has mental health issues, and he has a certain ability that Addie values. There isn’t much else to him – he is defined by the people around him, which is strange in terms of character development for a man who yearns to be enough.
This book is fine; I don’t regret reading it. The big concepts are interesting, but the time jumps and span of time feels like the author was reaching for the romantic sweep and pathos of The Time Traveller’s Wife, and it just doesn’t get there for me.
Bingo Category: Rec’d