Reviews with content warning for Sexism - The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

The invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a love letter to/for artists of every kind. This book holds so much in it’s pages, not just a story of a girl who made a deal; but of grief, guilt, stubbornness, love and loss, power dynamics and struggles of everyday life.

Addie LaRue might be one of my favorite characters ever written. She is stubborn, wise, loves with her whole heart and tries to make the best out of bad situations and has grown stronger because of it. She makes mistakes but she shows growth from those mistakes, she takes responsibility for them and while she may regret them she doesn’t wallow in the unfairness of it all.

The prose in The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is so incredibly beautiful and the many, many, many quotes I’ve tagged in this book that made me feel something or made me think could fill up a whole other book.

Every character -no matter if it’s a main character, a side character, or a character we meet once- is written like a real person. They have wants, needs, problems, passions and you hardly ever see that in a book. Especially one that spans over so much time as Addie’s story does.

I don't think I have the words to express my thoughts on this book, not really. This book touched something in me and broke something in me; if my 10 minute cry fest at the end of the book says anything.

I will admit I’ve restarted this book 3 times, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the story itself, I’ve just been getting over a reading slump and I still have my moments where I don’t read for a bit and I forget and have to start over. Which I honestly don’t mind because I really love what I’ve read (3 times so far 😂) so far.

I love the narrator of the audiobook, she does a wonderful job and the fact she can speak and can do a french accent is perfect. (I don’t know if the narrator is in fact French or not)

Overall I would recommend this book a million times over and it deserves all the awards in my opinion.

Content Warnings

natrossi's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

I don't even know what to say about this

Content Warnings

blewballoon's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

I struggled to finish this. I kept hoping it would get better, and I thought it might be when Henry joined the story, but the more time we spent with him the more I realized I wasn't interested in his character either. Addie isn't the kind of person I find myself rooting for or invested in, neither was Henry. Their choices felt arbitrary a lot of the time, like their dialogue. The chapters in the past never explored anything particularly interesting, just highlighted the overall misogyny of the past in ways that I didn't want to be immersed in. The past chapters stayed fairly far back in time without exploring more modern eras like the 50s-80s, which would have been interesting considering how much Addie lamented that women had no rights and women's rights changed a lot during that period. It feels like most of the book and plot take place in 2014. In general, the book is very repetitive. Overall things were just too sad yet uninteresting for me and it was a slog from start to finish. I am glad so many people liked it and I will try another V.E. Schwab at some point, but honestly I wish I hadn't wasted my time with this book.

Content Warnings

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