Book Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab, Victoria Schwab

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You know how some books don’t just tell you a story—they crawl into your chest and stay there, like a secret you’re not ready to share with anyone? That’s what The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue did to me. I remember closing the last page and just sitting there, staring at the ceiling, like I’d been holding my breath for hours and finally let it go. And even now, if I think about it too long, I feel that ache again—this mix of beauty and loneliness that only a book like this can stir up.

It begins with this bargain- an almost desperate attempt on the part of Addie to be free, to get out of the tight little life that her village and the people in it are trying to push her into. She wants more than simply a husband, children and church bells. She aspires to live. And how V.E. Schwab describes that instant when the hunger is clawing at her insides and she wants to say something into the darkness even though she knows that she should not. She demands to be set free, so she is, but at what a horrible price. She is memorable… literally Nobody remembers her

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And that was like a gut-shot to me. You meet a person, you like a person, you yell at a person and the minute you turn around... gone. You can never exist. It’s haunting. It’s suffocating. It is also rather lonely to the point where it aches to think about. I recall being there and how much I wanted to make a mark, in life, in people, even in little ways, and how awful it would be if all that I left just disappeared. The problem with Addie is that she is not simply forgotten, but she is erased. In some way, Schwab manages to make you experience the coarseness of it as though it is happening to you.

There are scenes which remain tattooed in my head. Addie snatching minutes of pleasure in pictures, in brief encounters with strangers, in a snatch of music heard in a street. She does not quit--she does not. and that strength… it awoke something in me. No, however much life scratches and tears at you, there is always a reason to find some meaning even in the tiniest of the cracks.

But then—Henry. Oh, my Henry. When does Addie first know he remembers her? My chest actually became tightened. I wanted to cry because it was not only a twist of the plot, it was a miracle. You could sense Addie trembling with her hope, the shock of it under her skin. It was like how you can find someone in your life who makes you feel seen after a long time of feeling invisible. That instant made my flesh creep

And yet… the book does not allow a reader to sit in comfort. There is still the dark god of Luc who fulfilled her wish. Their relationship is this crazy intoxicating jig of hate and attraction and inevitability knotted together. I hated him sometimes, I wanted to understand him sometimes, I wanted him to just let her go. So what is so strong about it? The manner Schwab does not allow putting people into the neat little boxes of good and bad.

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What actually got me though, was the ending. There are no spoilers, but I will say this: it is not a silver-platter kind of ending. It is sloppy, bittersweet and the type of ending that leaves you sitting in your chair with your coffee going cold, taking everything back in your mind and wondering whether you would have done anything different. It did not make everything a neat package. It raised more questions in me--about freedom, about love, about what we leave in our wake, even when the world no longer remembers our names.

And this is the thing: I think this is why this book remained in my chest. That is not all about Addie. It is a mirror. It inquires of thee: What wouldst thou keep up a fight, should thou be forgotten, should even thy memory be swept away? That question is still rattling around in me.

Some books you finish and move on. Others you carry. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue? I’m carrying it.

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The last three images was gotten from web:

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