Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - La Vida Invisible de Addie Larue

Intresting book with amazing feamale main character. Amazaing book that remind us what is the most important in life. And how powerful can memory be, the name and love in our life. And how dreaming big is important like also our belive in ourselves and not beiong afraid of trying to be the best version of ourselves. And being afraid of dreaming big.

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marioosa517's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious 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

4.25

Content Warnings

gingertea_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.0

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue ⭐️⭐️
SPOILER REVIEW
TW: rape, discussion of sex, discussion of suicide, alcoholism and drug addiction.

As a fan of V.E Schwab I was disappointed with this book.

I found the first 300-400 pages of this book unbearably slow to the point I was considering DNFing the book. I understand that this is purposely done but it made it uninteresting as a reader. In my opinion, when a character is immortal there should be at least an end goal/event to create an end to the book, which wasn’t introduced until the last 30 pages of the book. This pacing isn’t helped by the excessive use of commas meaning that some sentences were paragraphs long.

Furthermore, her curse isn’t that well explained. It was quite 2 dimensional and it seemed to be not very developed at times.

Some of my main issues in the story concern one of the sex scenes, dubious consent and suicide ideation.

Firstly, in one of the first sex scenes in the book Addie is unwillingly? (it’s not very clear) having sex with a man for money which is contrasted with a sexualised masturbation scene. This was very uncomfortable to read and unnecessary to the plot. Addie’s struggles could have been explained without this scene.

Also, as a part of Addie’s curse people don’t remember her which means her sexual partners don’t remember her meaning that the consent is unclear. This was very uncomfortable from the very being as it is also how the book opens which in my opinion is bad way to introduce the main character who we are meant to sympathise with.

There is also a brief mention of an interaction of Henry’s which to me came across as a potential sexual assault. In the scene with the man at the party, after his curse, and the man won’t accept that Henry doesn’t want to have sex with him. This is not taken seriously and in my opinion is almost glamorisation as it implies that it is desirable to be wanted to the point people won’t leave you alone.

In my opinion, the handling and explanation of Henry’s mental health was insensitive. The full extent of his struggles feels unnecessarily extraneous and gratuitous considering not all of it is useful to the plot coming across as for shock value. For example, the ages which he started using alcohol and drugs. In addition to this, the reason he stops using drugs and alcohol is because he is with Tabitha which suggests that addictions are something which can be given up for another person minimising the reality of addiction.

The language used to describe suicide and Henry’s forthcoming death is inappropriate. Addie makes a joke that the meal he has will be his last supper and before the reveal that Addie changed the deal it talks in depth about Henry’s perspective of death , but instead of using the word death it uses ‘the end’ which to me seemed inappropriate. It also has the quote ‘No one is ever ready to die. Even when they think they want to.’ The word ‘want’ is inappropriate as it is a misconception that people who are suicidal want to die. The return to the roof the potential suicide are used for tension and to create suspense which is massively insensitive, especially because the penultimate part of the book ends with the quote ’And he is falling.’ Leaving it unclear to what happened. This is a massive glorification of suicide and is very harmful.

Finally, there were some historical and classical music inaccuracies that annoyed me as a classical musician.

Schwab essentially rewrites Beethoven’s death. In the book Beethoven died at the piano when in real life it is a well known fact that he was bed bound for the months leading up to his death. I personally believe it isn’t fair to create a theory as to how someone died if their cause of death is well known. Instead of using Beethoven she could have used an equally famous composer to non musicians such as Mozart. He had a mysterious death and was rumoured to have been poisoned, it also makes more sense that Mozart the narcissist would make a deal with the devil than Beethoven the recluse.

She also incorrectly describes Tristan und Isolde as a symphony three times and calls it a play once and only correctly identifies it as an opera twice. Schwab also later on incorrectly calls the performers of the opera ‘players’.

Two minor inaccuracies are when she says that a brass band includes a trumpet and saxophone. A saxophone is a woodwind instrument and a brass band that includes a trumpet is technically a brass ensemble. It sounded like she was trying to describe a big band especially because of the addition of a crooner. (Side note the phrase ‘crooner melody’ was also incorrect as this is a style of singing not melody)

These could have been solved with more research and are minor inaccuracies however they took me out of the story. If you are going to include history and musical works in your book describe them correctly.

In conclusion, I was disappointed by this book.

Content Warnings