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

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

(Spoilers ahead).  Beautiful storytelling. I enjoy her writing. It evokes a mood of slow and exquisite purposelessness, with an edge of dreamlike desperation. Addie LaRue is in essence doomed to repeat the same day over and over again for three centuries, deprived of what she yearns for most - authentic human connection.

The story covers a span of history and yet has no responsibility to that history. Addie is unable to make lasting connections, and so though she experiences a great deal, she is disconnected from it all. She is a phantom with flesh and feelings. She learns, but she does not grow. Hers is a strange, involuted world. She lives history, yet it does not touch her at all. This is part of her curse. Because no one can remember her from one interaction to the next, no one in history matters - unless they are an artist she can inspire, or the strange and unique Henry, the only one who can remember her. And history doesn’t matter to the author either, or else she wouldn’t have written that Beethoven scene. Could she not have come up with a different artist whose last moments were not so meticulously documented by a friend?

The beauty of the story exists as long as I don’t overthink it. Like a mirage, it vanishes into memory when I get too close. I enjoyed reading the book, and perhaps that is enough.

My favorite quote: Someone lifts a cat to the back of a chair “where he does his best impression of an inconvenienced bread loaf.”

Side note: The character Henry is Jewish but don’t expect any positive representation.