The Invisible Life of Addie Larue โ€“ Summary and Review

The Invisible Life of Addie

V.E. Schwabโ€™s epic adventure The Invisible Life of Addie Larue spans millennia. It is the storey of a young woman in 1714 France who passionately desires to be immortal. So she forms an agreement with the Gods to become eternal, but as with any such bargain, it backfires. It becomes both a blessing and a curse. Everyone she encounters is instantly forgotten. Tom Doherty Associates is the publisher of Addie Larueโ€™s Invisible Life.

The Plot Summary

So begins a journey that will span almost 300 years. The spectacular journey begins in this manner, and our protagonist, a young woman, realises how far she may go to leave her own stamp on the world.

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Addie LaRueโ€™s remarkable existence spans countries, history, art, and time. Almost three millennia later, though, she encounters a young man in a clandestine bookstore who knows her name, and everything changes.

Henry is a regular guy who works in a bookstore. When Eddie took a book from him, she was confident that he, like everyone else in the last 300 years, would forget about her. But Henry recalls her. He knows how to say her name. It appears that he has finally found a way to break the curse and bring healing to her lonely life.

But Henry is hiding a secret from her, one that may devastate her life and, in fact, be enough to end Eddieโ€™s fight and survival throughout the three millennia she has lived.

This book is undeniably romantic, if not entirely or mostly so. In the narrative, both Adi and Henry are bisexual, but they are surrounded by strange personalities. Each relationship is distinct and vividly represented. Even if Adiโ€™s lover swipes her finger several times, it can grow sour. Adi lives on the outskirts of peopleโ€™s life so that she can be a beloved person, even if only for a day at a time.

The Goth Style

There are components in this work that lend it a Gothic flavour. It depicts a lovely night devil, a female doomed to wander for years, watching her loved ones forget and perish.

But I believe Addie La Rueโ€™s relationship with art is what makes her distinct and intriguing.

When it is auctioned, the book cleverly isolates certain elements of the book from the artwork and descriptive prose that accompany it. With a little hyperbole, we were told that Eddie had an influence on musicians, dates, and the media.

Her seven freckles, the blur of her black hair, attempted constantly to impress the artist. Their collection can be used almost like a storey in and of itself, leaving a brief, forgotten, and lasting impact. They create an urgency for us because we understand the desire to remember Eddie in such a concrete and intimate way.

Special Edition of The Invisible Life of Addie Larue

This is a fantastic storey. Life is not always what we want, but we can still make it enjoyable when we are pleased. This is an intriguing and easy-to-read novel. This is the ideal holiday read. You can pick it up and get directly to the information. โ€œThe Invisible Life of Adi Laruโ€ is an intriguing storey that moves quickly.

The pace is slow, but the momentum keeps you busy as you wait for readers to learn the results. This is foreseeable, but it will conclude satisfactorily and will connect all unresolved issues. Some of the male characters are hypocrites, yet they have not ruined the storey. The author can effortlessly transition between the two time periods, which is not always the case in this type of novel. Each plot is rich, and the only way to increase its wealth is to compare and contrast it with other stories.

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Without a doubt, this book draws together all of the charactersโ€™ senses and elements. The plot is fluid and well-executed throughout the work. If you have read the same book all day and are seeking for anything else to read that will not disturb you, this will suffice. If you want to submit and are seeking for above-average reading, this is also something you will appreciate.

The Six Limited Editions

Six special editions have already been released, some of which look so good that choosing between them is tough.

OwlCrate (US) โ€“ This was an exclusive, naked hardback with a lovely foil-wrapped cover, exclusive endpapers, and a ribbon bookmark to round out the aesthetics.

Barnes & Noble (US) โ€” A standard booklet and cover, but with the addition of the essay โ€˜A Ghost in the Frameโ€™ in the package.

Virtual Tour (United States) โ€“ This was a standard hardcover with a bookplate, an art print, and an exclusive tour.

Illumicrate โ€” had a one-of-a-kind cover, a hidden cover, and some stunning endpapers.

Forbidden Planet โ€” This has a hardboard design, an exclusive cover, and an essay from the author called โ€˜A Ghost in the Frame,โ€™ and it retailed for $9.99.

Waterstones โ€“ Hardboard with a one-of-a-kind cover and design.

Review of The Invisible Life of Addie Larue

I do not want to give too much away for those who have not read the book, but I truly appreciated how Addie LaRue describes and concludes her storey.

We discover that we are constantly a part of her storey yet know nothing about it. Addie LaRue may appear too cute or too cute in the presence of persons with limited talents. It is become famous as an exceptionally clever magic trick that makes us believe we have been a part of Addieโ€™s lengthy invisible life. I appreciate the plot and the real-life implications, such as the main characters being bisexual.

Review of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by Joel Rochester

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue or The Invisible Life of Addie the Street tells the storey of a girl who enters a Faustian pact with the devil and is consequently forgotten by everyone she meets. Addie becomes convinced that she must make her mark on the world in unique and influential ways, believing that an idea has the potential to grow into something greater. It is a narrative about the implications of our choices, how one choice may devastate a life, and how, despite everything, everyone desires to be remembered by someone.

I was ecstatic for this novel, for the storey that V.E. Schwab would tell. I adored her Shades of Magic series and was eager to read her most recent work. As a reader of books about dealings with gods and devils, I was hopeful this one would deliver, especially given how much some of my friends enjoyed it. While this storey stressed palimpsests and the connotations of creating a mark, falling in love, and finding oneโ€™s way in the world, I was taken aback by how not only white but also eurocentric this novel was.

Eurocentrismย (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) is a worldview that is centred on Western civilization or a biased view that favours it over non-Western civilizations.

While the prose was exquisite, the storey lacked depth. Addie LaRue conveyed to us (emphasis on conveyed) how difficult and horrible her life was through her lens. How she was nothing more than a shadow, a whisper, a stray notion carried away by the wind. Addie LaRue yearned for someone to remember her, to remember her name, to remember her storey. However, as we journeyed through Addieโ€™s life, I was unable to connect with her tale, with her storey. She had lived for three hundred years, and yet the experiences we witnessed were so limited in relation to the magnitude of her existence. We flashed back briefly before returning to New York for the storyโ€™s main plot and its emphasis on art, white culture, and history. I have the impression that it was more concerned with the white aesthetics of her experiences than with their implementation.

The storyline

Although this may have been done on purpose to emphasise how painful it was for Addie to be forgotten, after a while, the impression wore off. Again, this could be to demonstrate Addieโ€™s desensitisation to her curse. However, this made the narrative predictable, and by the end, I had guessed what would happen and was left feeling unsatisfied. The endingโ€™s emotional impact was reduced by 85 per cent. In the conclusion, Henryโ€™s gift to Addie was the only thing I felt for, the only thing I could connect with.

[I thought he would write a novel about her life, and it just seems fourth-wall-breaking that the novel in the novel is also called The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.ย It emphasized the fact that words are powerful, and the words you choose mean everything, especially in Addieโ€™s case.

I also had issues with Addieโ€™s character, as she did not mature significantly during the narrative. I felt the same way about another of Schwabโ€™s characters, Lila Bard. Addie is educated, methodical, and seasoned, whereas Lila is inexperienced, naive, and impulsive. Addie is conscientious of the implications, whilst Lila is oblivious to them. However, I can not help but feel that both characters are similar in that their level of evolution revolves around their development into unselfish individuals as a result of their interactions. Lila develops selflessness as a result of meeting Kell and changing her perspective on the world, whereas Addie develops selflessness as a result of meeting Henry and experiencing what it feels like to be recognised again.

While it was heartening to see Addie change and become hopeful, I felt as though she remained the same girl three hundred years prior, who had made the deal, with no regard for how (traumatic) events in history had shaped her, how it felt to be in a German cell, how it felt to live through wars and death. Rather than that, the novel maintained its exclusive focus on Addieโ€™s need to be remembered, as if that were the only thing that mattered in the broad scheme of things. This is demonstrated throughout the narrative by her repeated use of particular phrases, indicating that she continues to cling to her past, which reaffirms the person she was, is, and will always be. Addie is adamant about keeping it because she is the only one who can remember her past and hence cannot change as a person. She desires to be the same person because that is how she wishes to be remembered; she wishes to be able to recount her life.

One thing I did enjoy was Luc and Addieโ€™s anniversary. It was a wonderful touch, and I really enjoyed their early chats, how they were two opposing forces compelled to swirl around one another like two planets. Addie simply plays the longest game of proving a point by doing things out of spite, and I enjoyed how Luc responded with โ€œhuh you thoughtโ€. Although, near the conclusion, I saw that Luc grew significantly more possessive and manipulative, as a god should. However, I cannot fathom why anyone would want Addie to be with him for that specific reason. As in Team โ€œBoy who remembers Addieโ€ or Team โ€œTall, Dark (but white) and Handsome who not only plays with Addie but manipulates, punishes and abuses her for not doing what he wants.โ€ HMMMM??!??!?!?!!?!??!??

Henry was, indeed, Henry. While he was cute and I enjoyed reading his perspective and biography, I had the impression he existed solely to lend meaning to Addieโ€™s storey.

It felt as though Henry existed solely to convey Addieโ€™s narrative, and we never learn what happens to him after the work is published. His purpose in the narrative had been achieved, and as a result, he was no longer required at the conclusion. I simply hoped Henry has a stronger sense of purpose.

According to Schwab, this novel is a stand-alone, but the way it ends hints that there will be more to the storey. Is Schwab leaving a wedge in the door in case she decides to return to the world, or is she simply leaving readers in suspense about how it all ends? Perhaps we will never know.

However, I could not help but feel uneasy as I read this account. Apart from the slight existential crisis I was experiencing about whether I would be remembered after I died, something about this storey made me uneasy. Addieโ€™s storey is starkly white. We saw one black woman, Bea, whom Addie describes as gorgeous. That concludes the discussion.

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We never saw Addie on any other continents during her three hundred years apart from the United Kingdom, Europe, and America. Addie is fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, and Greek but has little interest in learning more languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Afrikaans, Arabic, or Hindi. Addie LaRue appears to have want to be remembered, just not by people of colour. Someone completed a circumnavigation of the globe in 80 days, but Addie has only visited three continents in three centuries. The fact that she can only say one thing about a person of colour is that they are beautiful? It made me feel uneasy.

This portrayal of the west in a work about the significance of memory is ironic, as the west is frequently remembered and exemplified in history, while the experiences of people of colour are ignored or erased. Where were the references to colonisation, to how France, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, and America competed for Africa? During this particular period, she was practically travelling between Germany and England. Additionally, there is no need for her to be unaware of, oh, I do not know, RACISM OR THE TRANSPORT OF SLAVES?!


As such, it demonstrates Addie LaRueโ€™s apathy toward colonisation and slavery, and the fact that she made no mention of it in her history demonstrates her complicity in the system. The fact that Henry never interrogates her about it? I simply found this storey to have such a white lens that it was dazzling.

I believe that the storyโ€™s eurocentric focus robbed me of the novelโ€™s meaning, as it felt to me that while all these white people were attempting to make their mark on the world, to make themselves known and loved, Bea, the only person of colour, was simplyโ€ฆ tokenized in the narrative. In a novel about the value of leaving your mark, I feel as though this book was telling me that the marks people of colour leave are unimportant and unvalued. Additionally, Voltaire??? Are you serious????

This novel demonstrates Addieโ€™s privilege in not having to worry about or recognise the cruelty and violence endured by people of colour during this time period. It demonstrates how lucky she is that she feels compelled to omit it from her big history and instead focus on the eras she believed were significant to her storey.

Additionally, there is an opinion that Schwab purposefully omitted them in order to avoid offending people of colour over the depiction of their countries and cultures. However, sensitivity readers and a variety of other techniques might have been used to verify that the representation was reasonably correct and that there was at least some representation! However, we did receive some queer representation.

May I also add how amusing it is that during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Addie is โ€œEverywhere, Nowhereโ€ but makes not a single word about the movementโ€™s impact? Oh, that is right. It is because Addie is too consumed by her curse, the circumstances surrounding her curse, and her desire to be desired, remembered. Addie LaRue marched in the Civil Rights Marches, correct? Addie LaRue met Martin Luther King Jr. Did Addie LaRue meet Martin Luther King Jr.? Or was she simply too preoccupied? (view spoiler)

[having sex with Luc instead?ย 

We will never know the answers to these questions.

I enjoyed the investigation of artโ€™s, historyโ€™s, and romantic meanings. How memories can vanish in a second and your life might become meaningless. Addie LaRue, on the other hand, compels you to remember her in the book, as everyone else (apart from Luc and Henry), particularly persons of colour, is simply forgotten.

This is a well-written work that I thoroughly liked reading. However, I have the distinct impression that I am not the intended audience for this book; rather, it is a novel for white people and white people only.

Iโ€™ve been rambling for the past three hours but I just hope this makes sense LMAO

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