Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER USA TODAY BESTSELLER NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER THE WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER Recommended by Entertainment Weekly , Real Simple , NPR , Slate , and Oprah Magazine #1 Library Reads Pick ― October 2020 #1 Indie Next Pick ― October 2020 BOOK OF THE YEAR (2020) FINALIST ― Book of The Month Club A “Best Of” Book From: Oprah Mag * CNN * Amazon * Amazon Editors * NPR * Goodreads * Bustle * PopSugar * BuzzFeed * Barnes & Noble * Kirkus Reviews * Lambda Literary * Nerdette * The Nerd Daily * Polygon * Library Reads * io9 * Smart Bitches Trashy Books * LiteraryHub * Medium * BookBub * The Mary Sue * Chicago Tribune * NY Daily News * SyFy Wire * Powells.com * Bookish * Book Riot * Library Reads Voter Favorite * In the vein of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Life After Life , The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab’s genre-defying tour de force. A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget. France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever―and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name. Also by V. E. Schwab Shades of Magic A Darker Shade of Magic A Gathering of Shadows A Conjuring of Light Villains Vicious Vengeful
DomeniqueCY –
I don’t read a lot of fantasy. It is not because I don’t like fantasy, it is because editors and agents in the adult fantasy world often do a terrible job of copy editing, and I end up finding small errors which takes me out of the story., One could argue that in this world of deep fiction there is no error, but in fact continuity is key to keeping up the rouse. Also, if you level of abstraction is such that your fantasy is taking place in a real place or a real time, or both, there are certain elements that need to reflect that., This was a great story, and it was not until halfway through the novel that there were the continuity errors. One being Henry’s brother should be working at Mt. Sinai, not just Sinai. Two, so Luc’s various last names mean “the Woods” but the German translation of duBois is ImWald, Holz, Von der Wald… Also the sexual fluidity of the two main character, does not need to be explained, but seems to fall relatively flat. It seems like it was just thrown into the book to seem relevant. I think if you’re going to do modern fantasy with representative sexualities, in a story that spans 300 years, a little chit chat about the evolving nature of sexuality in the last 300 years might help… I mean I really got taken out of the story with some of these plot and continuity holes…, Same goes for the very Eurocentric nature of the novel, and the lack of review on race or disenfranchisement. It doesn’t need to be a political novel with like deep dive discussions, just a contextual mention that race in the US in the 1950’s is different than in France in the 1700s, and maybe this main character benefits greatly in her little spell because she is in essence a cis white women.And I am a cis white women., Other than that, it is a nice little story, but I am kind of put off by her weird sexual attraction to the amorphous creature that Luc really is. I think the point of the novel was to extrapolate on patience in love, but just, I don’t think I have it in me to fall for a sinister g-dlike creature that is clearly not human, but maybe because I am human?? I just didn’t find his “smoldering” nature attractive, I found it abusive. But this novel really did make me think, and I looked forward to seeing what happened next in the four nights it took me to read it. So there you go…
meganthebookworm –
I’m so glad that I heard it was a slow book before I went into it. That helped a lot! If I had gone in expecting something fast paced, I probably would have been disappointed the whole time. However, knowing it was going to be slow, I was happy to listen to it languidly (audio book) and just enjoy the rich language as it went., Things I liked:, *The line level language was beautiful. She is a VERY talented writer. I wanted to highlight nearly every line as it was so poetic and perfectly done. The language alone is one of the reasons I liked it., *I liked a lot of the ideas presented and the characters. I also enjoyed the relationships., *I listened to the audio book and whenever I put it on, it immediately transported my mind to a contemplative, melancholy state that was sort of like a trance. It was sort of soothing., Things I didn’t like:, *I struggled with the bouncing around timeline. This was not a linear book. It hoped forward and backward and all around with no discernible rhyme or reason. It felt jarring and took a long time to get used to. Honestly, I sort of want to reread it but in chronological order some day. I didn’t find too many moments that felt like they had to go back to back. The only reason I can think of for the bouncing around was to help us FEEL how long and frustrated Adddie probably felt. But still, I would have preferred it in order., *As some people have already said, this book feels like it wants to be a big important book. It does feel at times like it tries too hard to be something grand. I still really liked it though., *I was surprised by how mundane her life was. She lived a long time and didn’t really seem to do as much with her time as I’d hoped. I was expecting a bit more of a grand adventure. Instead it was a simple, mundane life. I’m not opposed to that, I just expected something else., *I didn’t love the ending. I won’t spoil it, but I was not satisfied. I wanted a more definitive ending instead of one that “trails off.”, *She also says she doesn’t want to be “tied to anyone” and that ends up not being true. I won’t explain how, but that disappointed me that she didn’t see the error in her “deal.”
NK –
Now that I have finished this book, I am ridiculously annoyed that I was initially impatient and did not show it as much love and attention as it initially deserved (forgive me). However despite my prodigal nature, maybe that’s beauty of one concept this book focuses on… how messy we humans are., If anyone has ever come across any review I write on a book, the first thing I target is grammar. And to be honest, I won’t spend much time on a review if the grammar or the cadence of the story doesn’t reach a certain elevation for me. So hopefully me leaving a few words says more than what I write here., The grammar and vocabulary are both finesse and deliberate. I find most great stories tellers carry these qualities. Though many parts of the story recounts memories, it is not told in a redundant manner. That’s the beauty of story telling, there is always another detail to add that shifts the idea of the larger picture., The second thing I tend to critique is the development of characters. I personally love a long development, because I myself know how it feels to want to change something overnight (did I mention sometimes I’m “impatient”?). But the truth and the relatability to stories, is for the reader to feel that this could be them., Lastly I like a challenge (I know, seems contradictory to someone who can be impatient at times). The type of stories that really make you think and reflect. This definitely would have been a great book to discuss back in college lit or even just a book club. It’s definitely a story that has a lot to unpack for people., This is definitely a fantastic read. One I definitely won’t forget…