Reviews tagging 'Grief'

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

309 reviews

zg0612's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 I don’t think this book is something I could describe, but i’ll try. It was the most beautiful thing i have ever read, replacing my favorite book i’ve had for the last two and a half years. Maybe i loved it so much because i felt i related to the characters so much, longing for just a small something more in life, if it might feel complete, for just a moment even.
 The story the book wove had all kinds of emotions to. Want, love, sadness, bitterness, lust, anger, need, frustration, eagerness, hatred, and so much more. 
 The beauty of this book too, lit does not finish Addie’s story, it is not over, there is still more to it, for i don’t think it will ever be over, not really. 
 I can’t describe this book more than this, and i don’t think i want to. it deserves to be experienced, not told about. 

(It was funny too, because when i finished it, i have expected Luc to be standing behind me.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Alcohol, Cursing, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual content and War

marsmonny's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious relaxing sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Grief, War, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Drug use, Death, Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Violence

lunep's review against another edition

hopeful slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Misogyny, Sexism, Death, Violence, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, Addiction, and War

Moderate: Mental illness and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Pregnancy, Biphobia, Blood, Child death, Sexual content, War, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Death of parent

10stormlight's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

The first 75% of this book felt very slow and a bit dull to me. However, I did really enjoyed the ending. The last 10% was emotional in all the best ways and had some lovely snippets of poetic prose. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Grief

qyanacurry's review against another edition

emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

“A dreamer,” scorns her mother.
 “A dreamer,” mourns her father.
“A dreamer,” warns Estele.

Most people only have ~80 years for growth and development. I don’t know, I’m 22 and feel like I’ve gone through significantly more character development than someone 3 centuries older than me. Also for someone that wanted to be free to see everything it seems only France, Italy, and Germany had memorable experiences. Even her being in mostly Europe, someone else mentioned that there were no Renaissance experiences. What was Addie’s experience with the Renaissance? The Reformation? The Age of Enlightenment? The closest thing to it was mentions of Voltaire. She could’ve easily spent a year in each country, just gone back and forth and built up a collection of the most amazing experiences instead of memories walking through Europe. At least I would’ve but I’m not her and maybe key to development is being remembered for the things you do and have done so people can guide you.

I enjoyed the writing although sometimes it got a bit corny and repetitive. It was both inspiring and heart-breaking. I looooved the relationship with the darkness and the manipulation at the end too. Henry was bland but I feel like sometimes people are actually just bland and that’s who he is.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief and Sexual content

Minor: Sexual harassment

There’s a portion of the book where Addie does sex work out of necessity, she does not enjoy it. I wasn’t really sure what to tag this as.

msradiosilence's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

TLDR; 4.5 rating rounded up, I love monkey’s paw wishes, I love queer women, and I’m not gonna lie this book almost had me crying.


Full review to come. :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Addiction, Mental illness, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Chronic illness, Classism, Grief, Abandonment, Alcohol, Cursing, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Death

Moderate: Blood, Sexual content, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Injury/Injury detail, Biphobia, Sexual assault, Violence, and War

Minor: Kidnapping, Stalking, Cancer, Confinement, Rape, and Religious bigotry

lillieb130's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexism, Abandonment, Rape, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Death, Toxic relationship, and Grief

dfram's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

i loved this story. i cried and i laughed. i rooted for the bad guy, and for love to thrive in the end. i felt like i read about true love. i would love to re-read this and annotate my own copy! so many memorable quotes and interesting perspectives. 10/10 would recommend. i guess tiktok was right.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Death of parent, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Kidnapping

kaziaroo's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad 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? No

3.5

I liked the beginning, and the very end, but the middle not so much. While it's not my usual kind of book, and I have no patience for this kind of "lyrical prose" and over-romanticisation of everything, I was intrigued by Addie's situation and the bitter sadness of her not being remembered by everything. I struggled with some of the plausibility of it; that she would really be so desperate to avoid a quiet, comfortable marriage that she would make a deal with a strange eldritch being, and that she would never stray beyond Western Europe and the USA in her 300 years. Her relationship with the demon that cursed her was interesting, and so were the ways in which she learned to cope with and manoeuvre within her curse. I did find it tedious reading about her endless one-sided one-night stands, but I was willing to push through that. 

But then Henry appeared. I honestly think I would have enjoyed the book more if I'd just skipped Henry's chapters. The story would have mostly made sense without them and I would have those hours of my life back. Although I related to some of his struggles with choosing his career path and specialism, and his situation is also sad, Henry's chapters were just boring. He mopes around all day and whenever he feels a little worse he just downs a mixture of drugs with gay abandon and no consequences the next day. His and Addie's "love" was totally unconvincing; compared to the other lovers we see her meet, Henry is by far the most dull and she only likes him so much because he remembers her. She becomes the only interesting thing about him.

I wish the book had either explored the world and history a bit more or been a couple of hundred pages shorter. I had no interest in watching Addie and Henry having nice days out and going to endless bars and clubs, or sleeping with everyone they meet. The flowery writing desperately tried to make me fall in love with the characters and settings, but it was all style over substance. My overall feeling about this book is disappointment after the hype.

I would recommend this to fans of Matt Haig's "How to Stop Time" and who want nice, deep-sounding quotes to put in their Instagram captions.

TL;DR: it was well executed for what it was but the writing was flowery, the male lead boring, the female lead unadventurous, and there was too much sex, drugs and rock & roll for my tastes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Death of parent, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Drug use, Alcohol, Death, and Sexual content

Moderate: Sexual assault, Toxic friendship, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, and Stalking

Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Torture, Violence, Infidelity, War, and Vomit

nym1013's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death

Minor: Death of parent, Suicide attempt, War, Grief, and Suicidal thoughts