A review by baileebee123
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 I was hoping that I would like this book more than I did. I mostly enjoyed the reading experience, but with the amount of hype that this book got I found myself kind of disappointed. 

Things I liked: I've read 2/3rds of V.E. Schwab's Shades of Magic series and was impressed at how different this book is from that series. This is definitely an author that has range. Julia Whelan's narration was intriguing after only having listened to her narrate Emily Henry and her own novel. I read this as part of a book club and was told by my friends that they would recommend the physical book over the audiobook because of the poetry and art that obviously wasn't present in the audiobook. I do own the physical copy of the book so I peeked at the art at the beginning of each section and felt that it did add to the story. I really liked the writing. It was pretty flowery so I'm sure it wasn't a hit with everyone, but I felt like it was true to the theme of the book. The concept was super clever.
I liked how Addie and Henry's curses were complimentary to each other, though the fact that Henry was cursed along with Addie was supposed to be a plot twist and I saw that coming from a mile away.
How Addie made her way though everyday life was also super clever and I liked reading about it. I liked the commentary on art
(though the fact that many artists have sold their souls is disturbing to me)
and the impact of ideas, as well as the commentary on the human experience and how it makes life worth living.
I liked the fact that Addie has lived this long basically out of spite. I aspire to be that level of petty.
I liked that despite Addie not being able to leave a mark, she is able to impress upon other people. I feel like it says a lot about how we interact with each other. I liked that the ending was bittersweet. It was very fitting for the story. 

Things I didn't like: Addie is not a very compelling character to me. I was annoyed that despite living for so long, Addie doesn't seem to change or grow in any meaningful way. I also wasn't that interested in Henry
or Luc.
Some of the plot points were excruciatingly predictable and sometimes the characters seemed dumb.
I could tell when Addie said that she didn't want Luc to see Henry and ruin them that Luc definitely already knew. I was annoyed that Addie took so long to offer herself to Luc after learning about the term of Henry's deal, like weren't you bragging that you knew Luc best and couldn't you see that your self was the only thing you have that would be worth anything to him?
I wasn't interested in either possible love story. The fact that this isn't a romance is obvious but at least make it compelling? There was a distinct lack of commentary on history. I read a different review that was something along the lines of  "girl lived for 300 years and never went to Asia?" and I agree, and feel like there was a missed opportunity to pop up there like in the WW2 era perhaps. Overall, Addie's story is very Eurocentric, and while art was the main theme of this book, I don't think you can have art without history. Even if there were logistical issues with her traveling somewhere besides Europe, it might have been interesting to hear some more about American history besides the Prohibition.

Other notes: I've read better examples of the power of names than this book, which is kind of embarrassing considering how heavy-handed that commentary was. Perhaps other books do this better because it isn't so heavy-handed? There was a lot of "in ten years time" type of wording that I found super annoying in Beartown but I think it's appropriate here since Addie's story spans 300 years. There is some attempt at diversity with Henry being Jewish and both Addie and Henry being bi, but I'm not sure I could that as something favorable for this book. This one is kind of minor so I'll stick it here: are you saying that in all of your one night stands, no one ever had to go to the bathroom after? I think that would have made more sense if this was a 24 hour curse or something, but maybe that's too close to 50 First Dates. The out of sight, out of mind aspect makes a lot of sense for other scenarios, just weird for all of the nights spent with people. Also, I could have done without the final scene with Addie. Like girl, get over yourself!

Be warned: there is some pretty dark stuff in this book. Besides the fact that Addie lived through wars and some pretty horrific stuff, there are some things with mental illnesses and abusive relationships that I could see being pretty harmful to some people. Please heed the content warnings!

There are definitely people that I would recommend this book to, but I don't think I'll reread it. 
 
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