The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by

Hardcover, 448 pages

Published Oct. 6, 2020 by Tor Books.

ISBN:
9780765387561

View on OpenLibrary

5 stars (1 review)

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.

1 edition

reviewed The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

A beautiful new take on a classic fairy tale

5 stars

"Be careful what you wish for" is a common Faustian moral, but Addie Larue expresses this classic story in beautiful new ways without turning into a mere morality tale. Not content with tricky fae folk, or a deal with the devil at the crossroads at midnight, Schwab's "gods who answer after dark" are a much more subtle and terrifying expression of our own misunderstandings, and her story telling across centuries make for an extremely compelling narrative. This is easily one of the best books I've read in a long, long time, and the ending turns the entire archetype on its head in a way that is absolutely inspiring!