Monday, November 23, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

 



The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue marks the fifth book I've read by author V.E. Schwab, an author whose work I've had conflicted feelings about.  Schwab's prose has always worked really well for me, making it easy for me to devour her books with ease and with speed - which is not something I can say for every writer, even writers I enjoy.  On the other hand, the final products of that prose haven't always actually worked for me as well as others, with me pretty much hating the final book of her Darker Shade of Magic trilogy (A Conjuring of Light) and not really caring enough about her This Savage Song to go on to its sequel, even if I liked the earlier books/parts of those volumes.  Still, it had been over 2 years since I read one of her books - longer than I've been writing on this blog in fact - and so with this latest novel getting good press, I couldn't help but pick it up. 

And The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is generally pretty good and enjoyable - a lovely story of life and love that I devoured once again fairly quickly.  It takes a premises I've read at least once if not twice before - the idea of a woman who is immediately forgotten by everyone the moment she leaves their sight  (see for example - the Sudden Appearance of Hope) - and makes it into a cohesive story about loneliness and love that kept me enthralled, with two really damn strong lead characters.  There are, like the other Schwab books I've read, a number of annoying quirks in the way, which mar it a little, but only a little, so I can actually recommend this one to others to read as something I've liked.


--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
Addie LaRue wakes up in New York City in the bed of a boy, a man who will surely not remember her.  Not through any fault of that boy's own, but because of a deal Addie made almost 300 years ago in her home village of France - a deal with an Old God, for absolute freedom.  A deal for freedom to last until she no longer wants her life - and then the Old God can have her soul.  

But one should never deal with a God that answers after dark, as Addie was once warned.  And so the freedom she is granted by him is a form of curse - she may never age, she may never be harmed, she may never need sustenance....but she is also immediately forgotten by anyone she meets the moment she leaves their sight.  She is a young woman free from forming any bonds or direct impact on the world, a life of misery that the Old God is sure will have her begging for an end soon enough.  

But Addie is too clever for that, and despite the God's efforts, she finds things to still enjoy in the world.  People to enjoy.  A way possibly to make some mark on the world.  And for 300 years, she goes on like this....until she meets a boy in New York City who somehow, impossibly, can remember her.  And suddenly everything changes.....
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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is somehow not the first or even 2nd book I've seen with this concept of a person unable to be remembered by anyone the moment they leave someone's sight - it's at least the third (and second I've reviewed on this site, after Claire North's The Sudden Appearance of Hope).  It is however far more firmly committed to dealing with the implications of that concept than North's novel, and adds in immortality to boot to our protagonist to really hit home the implications.  The novel jumps back and forth in time between Addie's (and later secondary character Henry's) past and present, clueing us in to what really brought Addie to this point in such a way to always keep the reader really interested in finding out more, without providing full answers right away - and this works really well.

It does so mainly because Schwab has a really strong vision for Addie as a person who has to deal with such a curse.  The Old God who gives her the curse - who is eventually christened "Luc" - expects it to drive her to despair and giving up fairly quickly, and its easy to see why:  how would you react if your own family can't remember you, if your only friend can't remember you, and any attempt to make bonds with anyone else is doomed to fail from the start?  Where you can't directly make any mark on the world, changing it directly, always needing to borrow or steal the work of others just to have anything?  It would break many many people.  But somehow, it doesn't break Addie, even in her despair, and she finds ways to live with it, ways to find enjoyment in life, and even to make a mark when she herself may never be remembered.  Still, it wears upon Addie, after hundreds of years, and she comes closer and closer to the abyss....until she meets Henry, the boy who can remember her, which throws her for a loop: after 300 years, she doesn't even know how to react to such a person's existence!  

Henry is his own excellent character with his own strong arc, and I will say no more because I don't want to spoil anything.  But it's Addie's story at the heart of this, as you'd imagine from the title, and Schwab does a great job circling around from the past to the present and back again to tell it.  You will know where things are likely heading to by a certain point, but it's executed incredibly well in a way that still made me smile, and the romance between Addie and Henry pretty solid as well (not at all explicit mind you, in case you were worried and in case you know the other books I read - this is very PG-13.)  

There are some small details that detract from this book being truly great - nothing more than minor, but just really small quirks that bugged me a bit.  The book makes a point of Luc, who is basically the Devil, making a comment once about how even he wouldn't be involved in the evils of World War 2, which is just plain stupid and something I thought we grew out of in the early 00s and 90s.  Really the whole quick WW2 section makes little sense because we never see how Addie gets into that role, and its hard to imagine how, but it's such a small section it doesn't matter too much.  Then there's the ending, which uses a trope that is hardly rare and has been done well many a time....and then you look back at the book and realize it didn't commit to it at all, making it weird that the trope was used in the first place.  It's like Schwab planned on using that trope, which would've required taking steps that might have hurt the marketing of this book, and decided that couldn't be allowed so they half-assed it.  

Spoiler about that trope in ROT13: Fcrpvsvpnyyl, gur obbx'f raqvat srngherf GUVF obbx orvat choyvfurq ol Urael nsgre Nqqvr yrnirf uvz, jvgu gur choyvpngvba orvat qbar jvgu n pbire gung srngherf gur gvgyr bs guvf obbx, ohg nppbeqvat gb gur cebfr, ab anzr bs nal nhgube.  Fb lbh'q guvax, bu gung'f phgr....rkprcg Fpujno'f anzr vf ba GUVF obbx'f pbire, ehvavat gur rssrpg fvtu.

Again, none of this is anything more than minor, and the story as a result, though long, is really lovely.  Probably my favorite book of Schwab's by far, and one that definitely rewarded my decision to give her another shot.  
   

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