“A life no one will remember. A story you will never forget.”

In her new novel, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, V.E. Schwab creates something more magical than its contents; something bigger than the sum of its parts. This is a tale for the wide eyed dreamers and hopeless romantics in all of us.

Adeline LaRue is running for her life. That is how it begins. She’s running to escape a fate worse than death: a mundane existence. In her desperation to see the world, to amount to more than turned earth in her family’s grave plot, Adeline makes a deal with the darkness. She can live forever, unaffected by the elements, hunger, thirst or even time. Of course, as is the case with most deals with devils, there are strings attached. No one can remember her. Not even her own parents, or her longtime friend and mentor, Estelle.

So, Adeline leaves her hometown of Villon, France, and sets out to experience life. As she embarks down her new path, we do too, experiencing every color, sound, and taste right alongside her. As Addie goes from Paris to Venice to Munic to New York City, Schwab uses a narrative threaded almost like poetry to carry us through each moment in such vivid detail, that we are transported into the soft summer days and the loud, dimly lit bars. These immersive, elegant descriptions are the perfect salve in these hard times where everyone has been stuck at home and desperate for the hum of human contact.

Addie winds through history and lives her life in brief interactions and gentle impressions. She tests and learns the full stipulations of her agreement, which she comes to feel is a curse. She feels pain, but it never kills her. She falls in love, but it can never last. But though she can create nothing, she can build off of something else.

“Ideas are so much wilder than memories.”

Addie leaves ghostly ideas behind in her wake like breadcrumbs, impermanent but haunting. Traces of her inspire paintings, sculptures, and music. But she can never truly be known.

Have you ever wondered to what extent you leave an impression in the lives of those you meet? Have you ever fallen a little in love with a stranger, never to see them again?

For centuries, this is everyday for Addie LaRue. To everyone she meets, no matter how many times that might be, she is a stranger. Until one day she isn’t.

It is the year 2014, and after having pilfered a copy of The Odyssey--in Greek!--from an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, our heroine returns to the scene of the crime to strike again. Henry Strauss, the sensitive storm cloud of a young man charged with running the shop, is less than pleased to see her again after catching her red handed the first time. That is when he says the three words she’s been longing to hear for 300 years, the three words that change everything.

“I remember you.”

But how? How can Henry possibly remember her when no one else ever has? No one except Luc, that is.

Throughout the lonely centuries, longing for some semblance of companionship, Addie has formed a game of cat and mouse with the darkness, or as she has come to know him, Luc. They toy with one another as she tests her boundaries and his patience, and he tries to break her resolve, wear her down like a stone eroded by the tide, until she finally yields to him. Up until Henry, he has been the only one able to speak her name, the only constant she has had. A figure of dichotomy for her, of familiarity and dread. So, as she comes to know Henry, she cannot help but fear: Is his immunity to Luc’s magic just another trap the demon has set for her? Or has Luc truly made a mistake? We the readers are left to wonder as Addie begins to fall in love--but with Henry, or with what he can give her? And will she be able to figure it out before the darkness discovers this possible misstep in his curse?

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is spell-binding, evocative, bold, and yes, unforgettable. It is truly Schwab’s masterpiece. Each chapter is like a small story within itself, crafted like a collection of fairy tales and at times, bearing some similarity to her debut novel, The Near Witch.
It is at once a powerful storm and a gentle mist. It is light and it is dark. It is hope, and it is devastation. It is longing, and it is coming home.

This is a book so artfully and painstakingly stitched together that I could taste every champagne bubble and hear every heartbeat. I could see every sunset and feel every kiss. Schwab’s words illustrate like a brush on canvas, drawing readers into her work with her rich prose, empathetic characters, and captivating plots. While this book is reminiscent of works like The Time Traveller’s Wife or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and echoes with Faustian notes, it stands as a story all its own, playing with timeless themes in inventive and dazzling new ways. You are compelled, as if by some unseen force of will, to fall head over heels with Addie and Henry and their journey.

For anyone who has ever yearned for more in life, whether it be love, adventure, or freedom, this is the book for you. Never have I felt so seen, so deeply understood by a book as I did when reading about Addie and Henry. Both characters, whose points of view alternate throughout the novel, are so human and relatable, even surrounded by magical circumstances. Amidst spells and enchantments, they are plagued with the same flaws, desires, and questions we all face almost everyday. What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to be remembered? What does it mean to be loved?