The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
By: V.E. Schwab
[Fulfilling “A book whose cover has no picture” as part of the 2021 Spring/Summer Reading Challenge]
“Happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end, everyone wants to be remembered.”
Allow me to set the scene:
Addie- Ugh, I totally don’t want to marry that guy. He’s not even cute. And he has kids and being a mom is like a waste of life. Eat my dust as I dramatically flee into the dark forest of doom.
Devil- Oh hey. I know you already asked all the ‘good gods’ for help and none of them got back to you about your hopes and dreams, but here I am, now that you’re good and desperate, how may I help you today?
Addie- My life sucks and I don’t want to end up like the village people. (non-YMCA reference, this is 1714) I want unlimited time and freedom!
Devil- That’s a no for me dawg.
Addie- But I will give you absolutely anything, and you know I mean it because I’m admitting it to you in a dark forest of doom. Literally anything. I’m 23 and I know exactly what life is about and how to live it successfully. Give me unattached freedom and take my life and soul when I’m done with it. I know you’ll be nice to me!
Devil- Deal. kthanksbyeeeee
Addie- I don’t think I should be friends with that guy but my life is immediately the best. #noregrets
5 minutes later:
#alltheregerts
Addie is forgotten by everyone as soon as she is out of their view and can therefore have no relationships past a few hours (less if anyone has to go to the bathroom, which amazingly doesn’t ever really happen). Also she can’t really live anywhere. Or own anything. Or write anything. Or be painted. BUT she has ultimate freedom, is not ‘owned’ by anyone (ha…right…), and has no responsibility to anyone but herself.
Commence Addie ‘invisibly’ living for 300 years in many a time and place.
Intrigued?
The possibilities are endless, right?
This 448-page book could take us on an interesting and exciting journey through all kinds of historical events that Addie gets to be part of and changed by. We could be taken over the years as Addie finds love after love— one love for each of her seven famous freckles we are told in the beginning they are for. We could be audience to her life-changing and long-suffering voyage to discover how love must be selfless.
I mean we have 300 years worth of stuff to choose from.
Okay, Schwab, hit me with the story of a lifetime.
**Crickets**
Nope.
She says, how bout we just see how each era can show a different facet of Addie’s selfishness and stubborn rage. And also, let’s have her fall in love with the devil. And also, let’s have her actually be really bad at traveling and seeing the world. I think that would be rad.
So let’s be clear. The only reason I read this book was because it was nominated on Goodreads for best fantasy novel of the year so that seemed like kind of a big deal and it seemed generally loved. I’ve never read Schwab before. I’m not into ‘make a deal with the devil books’ and I don’t get excited about books where the a good guy (girl) falls in love with the bad guy. I come to this book with no real expectations or comparative books— I just want to enjoy the story and love the characters. Or at least the message.
But I am not impressed.
Lots of potential. Lots of waste.
Its one and a half saving graces is that the writing is very beautiful and engaging. I loved the voice and the style. It was poetic and pretty. The half is part of the ending which I don’t want to spoil too much, but she wrote it brilliantly, and in such a way that I almost believed it was what I wanted to happen.
Let me discuss this book in three parts: Addie’s existential crisis, her relationship with Luc (the devil), and her relationship with Henry (the one human in 300 years who can remember her).
Addie
“If she must grow roots, she would rather be left to flourish wild instead of pruned, would rather stand alone, allowed to grow beneath the open sky. Better that than firewood, cut down just to burn in someone else’s hearth.”
Okay, Addie, I get the sentiment. 1714 is not a great year to be a woman. Arranged marriages are the pits. And you can’t go clubbing in your village. But you’re only 23 so you have no real concept of what’s important in life.
Even after living 300 years with no one to have a meaningful relationship with (other than the devil), you say you would still do it all over again.
You are asked, “Were the instants of joy worth the stretches of sorrow? Were the moments of beauty worth the years of pain?” And you say, “Always.”
Yet never once do you consider that maybe getting married and having a family, raising kids (and possibly still being able to travel somewhere, you’re not chained to a house) would have been worth the days of sorrow and pain. You’re telling me those moments of joy and beauty would not have been worth it? Are you just too stubborn to admit you done boofed it? I see no character growth in you.
I still see a selfish woman who only cares about herself and her own “freedom.” Which essentially in this book looked like mostly just sexual freedom. Schwab skips over sharing your historical endeavors (other than name-dropping) and spends the majority of the book detailing your sexual exploits and weird attachment to Luc.
Schwab’s inclusion of Addie attending a party with Rosseau is very telling. Rosseau’s philosophy is based on the idea that humans are intrinsically good. When we act out of our own nature, we are truly our good selves. Any sin or wickedness we have can be blamed on society and external forces that corrupt us. I think these ideals are embedded in Schwab’s character building and treatment of their sexual lifestyle.
I am making assumptions here. I don’t really know what Schwab’s purpose for this story was. It’s one of those books you can read very surface-level, just for the narrative, or you can really analyze the elements and figure out what message she is sending. To me, it feels like she is making the case that Addie is a brave hero making a way for herself by doing whatever feels right in the moment, by following her true nature. I’m still trying to decide if she was making it into a good thing or a bad thing.
One thing I thought was really clever and fitting was the Sisyphus reference. In Greek mythology he cheated death twice and his eternal punishment was to endlessly roll a heavy stone up a hill and watch it roll back down. Addie’s ‘invisibleness’ creates this Sisyphean existence of building a relationship or attempting to create a life only to have it start over, be forgotten and lost. A repetitive and lonely existence. And that would be torture.
Luc
Enter Luc, Addie’s torturer. Addie describes Luc as “feral magic in a lover’s form.” (Is this a good thing?)
Many pages are devoted to watching their relationship develop. Luc intends to break Addie down so that she will surrender her soul to him. And after a horrific first year, she contemplates it. But his gloating is all she needs to fuel 300 years of stubborn rage towards him, refusing to give him what he wants.
“‘But now, no matter how tired I am, I will never give you this soul’… the darkness has given her the one thing she truly needs: an enemy… this is the beginning of the war.”
But as the years pass, she becomes weirdly anchored to him. He is the only one who remembers her, who can say her name. He is her only true relationship.
Theological plot holes aside, Luc loves Addie, protects her from danger, and provides for her. We come to anticipate that Addie must somehow choose Luc in the end—despite their “falling out.” (*sigh*… don’t we all just sometimes have a breaking point when we try to be lovers with the devil….?)
Good girl choosing the bad boy over the nice guy is a popular trope. But believing in a love with the darkness that cursed you and blatantly takes other souls in front of you… I don’t know, man. I just can’t get there. Even if he claims he was not pro-Nazi… It’s just really not enough. #niceguys4lyfe
Henry
Poor nice-guy-Henry.
He, though matched in stupidity, is the antithesis to Addie. She wanted to live and Henry wanted to die. Feeling worthless, unloved, and inadequate he trades time for love. Well. Not really love. His curse is that everyone always sees in him what they want; they don’t really see him. And so they love him. And it’s actually the opposite of what he wanted because he knows it’s not real. Ah, the irony.
But it is this very deal that he has made with Luc that has enabled him to say those three coveted words to Addie: “I remember you.”
Cue love affair.
But I wasn’t fooled. Henry is being used by Addie. They believe Addie is immune to Henry’s curse. That she really sees him and loves him. But then she says this:
“What I want, what I’ve always truly wanted is for someone to remember me. And that’s why I can look at you, and see you as you are. And it is enough. It will always be enough.”
Whoops. Guess you’re still not enough Henry. She doesn’t really love you. She just loves that you can remember her. She needs you for her own vanity. So she got out of you what she needed and will have no qualms moving on.
As an art major, I was intrigued a little with the exploration of art, history, and influence in this story.
“Art is about ideas and ideas are wilder than memories.”
Addie discovers a way to weave herself in history. Though her photograph can’t be taken and her face can’t be rendered, her seven freckles take center stage in art all through history. She becomes an idea.
And I guess, to her, that was a satisfactory legacy to leave behind. Well, plus she gets the book we are reading which is actually Henry acting as Addie’s scribe to write a book about her life. Which again, is mostly just a bunch of one-night stands, a love/hate relationship with a devil, and a boy who is dying for love. I would still question the value of this legacy.
Is a life really only meaningful if it is remembered?
That is essentially the question this book is exploring.
It sounds noble. We want to make a mark on the world and change it for the better. But is the only way to do that to be remembered? You’d be living an entire lifetime trying to make yourself great and important in some way. Is that the best we can do? Make our name or our face or our brand known?
That doesn’t sound selfless or sacrificial to me.
And speaking from personal experience in interpreting art, becoming an idea in artwork isn’t really a clear path to acknowledgement either. Artists are often (trying to be) too profound to be understood. So yeah you’d be an idea, but no one could articulate you.
“What is the point in planting seeds? Why tend them? Why help them grow? Everything crumbles in the end. Everything dies.”
Well everything but Addie.
Cheers.
To me a fantasy novel should create an extraordinary world, extraordinary characters, and/or an epic journey or adventure. The only thing that made this book a fantasy was what the Bachelor calls ‘the fantasy suite’ and one character with special powers- the devil. Am I just illiterate to this genre?
In case you skipped past all my inspiring opinions, here’s my briefest synopsis:
This is a very long book that you will read and you might enjoy but when you try to explain what happened you will think, “Well, I guess not a whole lot.” When you try to explain the beauty of it you will think, “Well, I liked the words. But I guess none of the love was real and there’s actually no real hope. Addie thinks she has a plan but let’s be real, Addie’s track record is pretty terrible.”
And after all, you will realize, I guess it’s not that great.
Language and sexual content rating: Whatever the step above moderate is… Pre-Spicy?
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