The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Score: 5/5 Bookmarks

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for gifting me a review copy of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab.

This book broke me, made me ponder the meaning of life, and made me grateful all at once.

It almost has a time-travel feel to it because the book is split between the 1700s and 2014, although no-one actually goes back in time. Addie witnesses (and participates in) wars, sees famous people through history (Sinatra, Beethoven and Voltaire just to name a few) and gets to be a part of history even though she can’t directly leave her mark on it. And “…it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten. To remember when non one else does.”

The older I get the more I feel that shared history matters. Yes the big things, life’s punctuations, adventures, but also the tiny moments, the shared jokes, the shorthand you develop with loved ones. Despite all that Addie gets to experience, those are things that she is denied.

Remy’s descriptions of Paris also spoke to my heart and are how I’ve always felt about the city of light. Even with the pace and bustle of the city, people pay attention. They stop to eat, to talk, to think, to contemplate. No drive-throughs, or giant to-go cups. They make time for, and prioritize living.

The writing was so beautiful that I wanted to luxuriate in it for as long as as I could, and was devastated when I finally reached the end. This will be a book that will stay with me for a long, long time.

The audio was superbly narrated by Julia Whelan, who you might recognize from Educated, Beach Read, Pretty Things, The Giver of Stars, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. It comes in at just over 17 hours.

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.