The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
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4.5 • 5.3K Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher 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
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This dark fantasy revolves around a simple, fascinating question: Is being immortal worth it? Hoping to escape her stifling existence as a country wife in 18th-century France, Adeline LaRue cuts a deal with the god of darkness. In exchange for immortality, Addie will never be remembered by anyone she meets—and she can never be loved. V. E. Schwab, author of the best-selling Shades of Magic series, finds an unexpectedly captivating side to Addie’s fate: Although her heroine can’t connect with people, she’s able to witness, in real time, the world’s ever-changing beauty over the span of centuries instead of decades. She devours art and music and literature. It seems like a worthwhile trade-off—until Addie meets Henry, who actually remembers her name. At that point, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue becomes even richer, its sensuous strangeness turning romantic and exciting as the couple attempts to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. Schwab’s book made us appreciate the joy of having someone to share life’s discoveries with.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Schwab (the Shades of Magic series) crafts the tale of one woman's desperate drive to be remembered into a triumphant exploration of love and loss. The story hops across time as it follows the life of Adeline "Addie" LaRue from the French country side in the early 1700s to New York City in 2014. As a young woman, Addie makes a deal with the devil to save herself from the tedium of an arranged marriage, asking for "a chance to live and be free." The devil grants her immortality but curses her to a life of horrible isolation: no one she meets will be able to remember her. The first half of the book as Addie learns the limits and loneliness of her curse is as devastating as it is prescient in these self-isolating times. Which makes Addie's eventual meeting with Henry, the first person to remember her in some 300 years, all the more joyous. This sweeping fantasy is as much a love story as it is a tribute to storytelling, art, and inspiration. Schwab's diverse cast is beautifully rendered, and the view of human connection on offer is biting and bitter, yet introspective and sweet. This ambitious and hopeful work is a knockout.
Customer Reviews
See AllMy goodness
This is a beautifully constructed story with imagery that will stay with me for a long time. I partly want there to be another one and also understand there may never be.
Addie LaRue will be in my thoughts for a very long time.
This is how it starts
This book simultaneously tore my heart into pieces and put it back together again. I feel as if I, too, have lived with Addie for those 300 years, and I hated finishing the book because it meant, for now, saying goodbye. But it isn’t a goodbye, it’s an ellipses, it’s a see you later, because I will definitely be rereading this again and again. It’s a timeless tale that I can’t get enough of.
Incredibld
Read this if you want to immerse yourself in a magical, yet realistic and heartbreaking story. The writing is gorgeous, the characters feel genuine and they truly come alive on the page. It blends dreams and reality masterfully, a touch of dark magic in the real world. This is the kind of book you’ll be thinking about long after you finish reading it (I know I will be).