4.5
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88,565 ratings
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
USA TODAY BESTSELLER
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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.
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
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
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ISBN-10
0765387573
ISBN-13
978-0765387578
Print length
448 pages
Language
English
Publisher
Tor Books
Publication date
April 10, 2023
Dimensions
6.1 x 1.15 x 9.15 inches
Item weight
1.05 pounds
Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.
Highlighted by 17,200 Kindle readers
Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget.
Highlighted by 12,919 Kindle readers
That time always ends a second before you’re ready. That life is the minutes you want minus one.
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ASIN :
B084357H23
File size :
5915 KB
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Praise for The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue:
"Completely absorbed me enough to make me forget the real world." ― Jodi Picoult, Washington Post
“Victoria Schwab sends you whirling through a dizzying kaleidoscopic adventure through centuries filled with love, loss, art and war ― all the while dazzling your senses with hundreds of tiny magical moments along the way. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue will enchant readers as deeply as its heroine’s Faustian bargain; you will find yourself in quick turns both aching with heartbreak, and gleefully crowing at the truly delicious, wicked cleverness in store.” ― Naomi Novik, Nebula and Locus Award-winning author of Spinning Silver
“Addie Larue is a book perfectly suspended between darkness and light, myth and reality. [This novel] is―ironically―unforgettable.” ― Hugo Award winner Alix E. Harrow, author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January
“The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is the kind of book you encounter only once in a lifetime. . . . A defiant, joyous rebellion against time, fate, and even death itself―and a powerful reminder that the only magic great enough to conquer all of it is love.”― Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M
“Sweeping in its scope yet wonderfully intimate, it's dark and sexy yet romantic and heartbreaking.” ―Rebecca Roanhorse, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of Black Sun
“Rich and satisfying.” –Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
“A knockout.” –Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“Epic.” –Library Journal, Starred Review
“Deeply romantic, impossibly detailed.” –Booklist, Starred Review
“A delightful surprise and a balm in difficult times..” –BookPage, Starred Review
“Schwab’s page-turner is an achingly poignant romantic fantasy about the desperate desire to make one’s mark on the world.” ―Oprah.com, Best LGBTQ Books of 2020
“A beautiful, meditative novel with an ending that hit me right in the heart.” ―Buzzfeed, Best Fall Fantasy 2020
"It's a bit cheeky to call The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Faust for romantic bisexual goths, but it's not wrong... I for one will most certainly remember her."―NPR
“Addie is unlike anything Schwab has written before―epic yet intimate, sweeping but not sprawling... If Addie shows anything, it’s that the impact of our actions and interactions can be vaster and longer-lasting than we can predict. Much like the seven freckles that sprinkle Addie’s face, we create our own constellations, and as we live through these darkened days, I feel brighter for having added Addie to mine.”―Slate
“Schwab beautifully explores what it means to be alone for so long that it's jarring and terrifying once you are finally seen...Addie is an independent and fascinating character who manages to make her mark in spite of the odds.”―USA Today
“Schwab’s writing is warm and intense, and the passages set in the past often make you feel as if you’re reading by candlelight...The book is an elegant comment on the erasure of women from recorded history, but not a pointed one; you never feel that Addie LaRue is a metaphor. She is a woman fighting literally to be seen while bearing witness to her own life, and I rooted for her throughout.”―New York Times Book Review
“One of the most propulsive, compulsive and captivating novels in recent memory.”―Washington Post
“There is no particular art to literary fiction that doesn’t exist in fiction of other genres, and V. E. Schwab’s new book The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue isn’t just an amazing book for its genre; it’s an amazing book, full stop...a gorgeous, immersive story...Schwab is an inclusive, ambitious, and exacting writer, and she doesn’t let either her characters or her readers off the hook...This book doesn’t blend genres, or even transcend genre.”―Chicago Review of Books
"This evocative and clever tale will leave you smiling, filled with love and longing for more magical moments in everyday life."―CNN, Best Books of October
"Expansive and utterly heart-wrenching...both heartbreaking and hopeful. I read the last hundred pages well into the night, gasping and sobbing. It’s a beautiful read."―Book Riot, 25 Must Read New Fantasy Books
“A remarkable, genre-defying epic of a woman fighting to thrive in a world that denies her existence....stunning.”―Shelf Awareness for Readers
"When I first finished Addie LaRue, I sat back with a deep sense of wonder. Schwab’s words had weaved their spell and left me starstruck... eloquent and beautiful...Addie LaRue sparks something internally as you read and what is the point of reading, if not to feel?"―The Nerd Daily
“[An] enthralling romantic adventure.”―Business Insider
"A career triumph...Her propulsive, lyric prose is here, her morally complex, entrancing characters, her unique shape of magic, all wrought within this entirely fresh premise that will no doubt become a long-lasting favorite...Addie defies genre, blending romance and history, fantasy and monstrosity, cresting through peaks of time, centered on a young (and also, technically very old) woman with both less and more agency than anyone alive...romantic, ambitious, and defiantly, deliberately hopeful. Epic and intimate at once, it asks what art is...Schwab is simply one of the most skilled writers working in her genre...The feat of this book is frankly awe-inspiring.”―Tor.com
“[Schwab] flexes her beautiful prose and sets the stage for an unforgettable tale.”―SyFy Wire
"Poetic and heartrending, The Invisible Life of Addie Larue is perfect for fans of time travel stories, historical fiction, and fantasy alike." ―The Register-Herald
"This spellbinding story is destined to be a classic." ―Greatist
"A beautiful tale of star-crossed love, magic, and a dark Faustian Bargain makes The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue the perfect book for the fantasy lover in your life!" ―The Mary Sue
"A gender flip version of Faust, and also a haunting love story that will linger." ―New York Journal of Books
"A masterpiece that has been so many years in the making, but the wait was truly worth every page...a book that will stay with you long after you finish reading the last word." ―Seventeen Magazine
"Irresistibly contagious." ―Locus Magazine
“One of the most haunting and bittersweetly beautiful novels I have ever read...a mature, introspective love story, and a thoughtful examination of what it means to have a life well lived.” ―Manhattan Mercury News (Kansas)
"Schwab's brilliant epic novel blends fantasy and history, romance and art, as it moves back and forth through time. Addie, one of the author's most morally complex and riveting creations, embarks on adventures both grand and lowly, as she travels, ghostlike, through the centuries." ―Bookmarks Magazine
“I was caught in the emotion, the demanded pound of flesh as I considered my own attachments and inherent sense of self, my notions of love and ache and need.” ―Historical Novel Society
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New York City
March 10, 2014
I
The girl wakes up in someone else’s bed.
She lies there, perfectly still, tries to hold time like a breath in her chest; as if she can keep the clock from ticking forward, keep the boy beside her from waking, keep the memory of their night alive through sheer force of will.
She knows, of course, that she can’t. Knows that he’ll forget. They always do.
It isn’t his fault—it is never their faults.
The boy is still asleep, and she watches the slow rise and fall of his shoulders, the place where his dark hair curls against the nape of his neck, the scar along his ribs. Details long memorized.
His name is Toby.
Last night, she told him hers was Jess. She lied, but only because she can’t say her real name—one of the vicious little details tucked like nettles in the grass. Hidden barbs designed to sting. What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind? She has learned to step between the thorny weeds, but there are some cuts that cannot be avoided—a memory, a photograph, a name.
In the last month, she has been Claire, Zoe, Michelle—but two nights ago, when she was Elle, and they were closing down a late-night café after one of his gigs, Toby said that he was in love with a girl named Jess—he simply hadn’t met her yet.
So now, she is Jess.
Toby begins to stir, and she feels the old familiar ache in her chest as he stretches, rolls toward her—but doesn’t wake, not yet. His face is now inches from her, his lips parted in sleep, black curls shadowing his eyes, dark lashes against fair cheeks.
Once, the darkness teased the girl as they strolled along the Seine, told her that she had a “type,” insinuating that most of the men she chose—and even a few of the women—looked an awful lot like him.
The same dark hair, the same sharp eyes, the same etched features.
But that wasn’t fair.
After all, the darkness only looked the way he did because of her. She’d given him that shape, chosen what to make of him, what to see.
Don’t you remember, she told him then, when you were nothing but shadow and smoke?
Darling, he’d said in his soft, rich way, I was the night itself.
Now it is morning, in another city, another century, the bright sunlight cutting through the curtains, and Toby shifts again, rising up through the surface of sleep. And the girl who is—was—Jess holds her breath again as she tries to imagine a version of this day where he wakes, and sees her, and remembers.
Where he smiles, and strokes her cheek, and says, “Good morning.”
But it won’t happen like that, and she doesn’t want to see the familiar vacant expression, doesn’t want to watch as the boy tries to fill in the gaps where memories of her should be, witness as he pulls together his composure into practiced nonchalance. The girl has seen that performance often enough, knows the motions by heart, so instead she slides from the bed and pads barefoot out into the living room.
She catches her reflection in the hall mirror and notices what everyone notices: the seven freckles, scattered like a band of stars across her nose and cheeks.
Her own private constellation.
She leans forward and fogs the glass with her breath. Draws her fingertip through the cloud as she tries to write her name. A—d—
But she only gets as far as that before the letters dissolve. It’s not the medium—no matter how she tries to say her name, no matter how she tries to tell her story. And she has tried, in pencil, in ink, in paint, in blood.
Adeline.
Addie.
LaRue.
It is no use.
The letters crumble, or fade. The sounds die in her throat.
Her fingers fall away from the glass and she turns, surveying the living room.
Toby is a musician, and the signs of his art are everywhere.
In the instruments that lean against the walls. In the scribbled lines and notes scattered on tables—bars of half-remembered melodies mixed in with grocery lists and weekly to-do’s. But here and there, another hand—the flowers he’s started keeping on the kitchen sill, though he can’t remember when the habit started. The book on Rilke he doesn’t remember buying. The things that last, even when memories don’t.
Toby is a slow riser, so Addie makes herself tea—he doesn’t drink it, but it’s already there, in his cupboard, a tin of loose Ceylon, and a box of silk pouches. A relic of a late-night trip to the grocery store, a boy and a girl wandering the aisles, hand in hand, because they couldn’t sleep. Because she hadn’t been willing to let the night end. Wasn’t ready to let go.
She lifts the mug, inhales the scent as memories waft up to meet it.
A park in London. A patio in Prague. A tea room in Edinburgh.
The past drawn like a silk sheet over the present.
It’s a cold morning in New York, the windows fogged with frost, so she pulls a blanket from the back of the couch and wraps it around her shoulders. A guitar case takes up one end of the sofa, and Toby’s cat takes up the other, so she perches on the piano bench instead.
The cat, also named Toby (“So I can talk to myself without it being weird…” he explained) looks at her as she blows on her tea.
She wonders if the cat remembers.
Her hands are warmer now, and she sets the mug on top of the piano and slides the cover up off the keys, stretches her fingers, and starts to play as softly as possible. In the bedroom, she can hear Toby-the-human stirring, and every inch of her, from skeleton to skin, tightens in dread.
This is the hardest part.
Addie could have left—should have left—slipped out when he was still asleep, when their morning was still an extension of their night, a moment trapped in amber. But it is too late now, so she closes her eyes and continues to play, keeps her head down as she hears his footsteps underneath the notes, keeps her fingers moving when she feels him in the doorway. He’ll stand there, taking in the scene, trying to piece together the timeline of last night, how it could have gone astray, when he could have met a girl and then taken her home, if he could have had too much drink, why he doesn’t remember any of it.
But she knows that Toby won’t interrupt her as long as she’s playing, so she savors the music for several more seconds before forcing herself to trail off, look up, pretend she doesn’t notice the confusion on his face.
“Morning,” she says, her voice cheerful, and her accent, once country French, now so faint that she hardly hears it.
“Uh, good morning,” he says, running a hand through his loose black curls, and to his credit, Toby looks the way he always does—a little dazed, and surprised to see a pretty girl sitting in his living room wearing nothing but a pair of underwear and his favorite band T-shirt beneath the blanket.
“Jess,” she says, supplying the name he can’t find, because it isn’t there. “It’s okay,” she says, “if you don’t remember.”
Toby blushes, and nudges Toby-the-cat out of the way as he sinks onto the couch cushions. “I’m sorry … this isn’t like me. I’m not that kind of guy.”
She smiles. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
He smiles, too, then, and it’s a line of light breaking the shadows of his face. He nods at the piano, and she wants him to say something like, “I didn’t know you could play,” but instead Toby says, “You’re really good,” and she is—it’s amazing what you can learn when you have the time.
“Thanks,” she says, running her fingertips across the keys.
Toby is restless now, escaping to the kitchen. “Coffee?” he asks, shuffling through the cupboards.
“I found tea.”
She starts to play a different song. Nothing intricate, just a strain of notes. The beginnings of something. She finds the melody, takes it up, lets it slip between her fingers as Toby ducks back into the room, a steaming cup in his hands.
“What was that?” he asks, eyes brightening in that way unique to artists—writers, painters, musicians, anyone prone to moments of inspiration. “It sounded familiar…”
A shrug. “You played it for me last night.”
It isn’t a lie, not exactly. He did play it for her. After she showed him.
“I did?” he says, brow furrowing. He’s already setting the coffee aside, reaching for a pencil and a notepad off the nearest table. “God—I must have been drunk.”
He shakes his head as he says it; Toby’s never been one of those songwriters who prefer to work under the influence.
“Do you remember more?” he asks, turning through the pad. She starts playing again, leading him through the notes. He doesn’t know it, but he’s been working on this song for weeks. Well, they have.
Together.
She smiles a little as she plays on. This is the grass between the nettles. A safe place to step. She can’t leave her own mark, but if she’s careful, she can give the mark to someone else. Nothing concrete, of course, but inspiration rarely is.
Toby’s got the guitar up now, balanced on one knee, and he follows her lead, murmuring to himself. That this is good, this is different, this is something. She stops playing, gets to her feet.
“I should go.”
The melody falls apart on the strings as Toby looks up. “What? But I don’t even know you.”
“Exactly,” she says, heading for the bedroom to collect her clothes.
“But I want to know you,” Toby says, setting down the guitar and trailing her through the apartment, and this is the moment when none of it feels fair, the only time she feels the wave of frustration threatening to break. Because she has spent weeks getting to know him. And he has spent hours forgetting her. “Slow down.”
She hates this part. She shouldn’t have lingered. Should have been out of sight as well as out of mind, but there’s always that nagging hope that this time, it will be different, that this time, they will remember.
I remember, says the darkness in her ear.
She shakes her head, forcing the voice away.
“Where’s the rush?” asks Toby. “At least let me make you breakfast.”
But she’s too tired to play the game again so soon, and so she lies instead, says there’s something she has to do, and doesn’t let herself stop moving, because if she does, she knows she won’t have the strength to start again, and the cycle will spin on, the affair beginning in the morning instead of at night. But it won’t be any easier when it ends, and if she has to start over, she’d rather be a meet-cute at a bar than the unremembered aftermath of a one-night stand.
It won’t matter, in a moment, anyways.
“Jess, wait,” Toby says, catching her hand. He fumbles for the right words, and then gives up, starts again. “I have a gig tonight, at the Alloway. You should come. It’s over on…”
She knows where it is, of course. That is where they met for the first time, and the fifth, and the ninth. And when she agrees to come, his smile is dazzling. It always is.
“Promise?” he asks.
“Promise.”
“I’ll see you there,” he says, the words full of hope as she turns and steps through the door. She looks back, and says, “Don’t forget me in the meantime.”
An old habit. A superstition. A plea.
Toby shakes his head. “How could I?”
She smiles, as if it’s just a joke.
But Addie knows, as she forces herself down the stairs, that it’s already happening—knows that by the time he closes the door, she’ll be gone.
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V. E. Schwab
VICTORIA “V. E.” SCHWAB is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, including the acclaimed Shades of Magic series, the Villains series, the Cassidy Blake series and the international bestseller The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Her work has received critical acclaim, translated into over two dozen languages, and optioned for television and film. First Kill – a YA vampire series based on Schwab’s short story of the same name – is currently in the works at Netflix with Emma Roberts’ Belletrist Productions producing. When she's not haunting Paris streets or trudging up English hillsides, she lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is usually tucked in the corner of a coffee shop, dreaming up monsters.
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Customer reviews
4.5 out of 5
88,565 global ratings
Danielle Courter
5
A must read!
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2024
Verified Purchase
This book was recommended to me by someone so I decided to give it a try after reading what it was about and it sounded interesting. It’s not in my typical genres that I enjoy but I am so glad I gave this a shot! SO GOOD! I usually only like romance or psychological thrillers. But this one really kept me engaged. I read 300 pages of it in the last 24 hours. So many tears were had. I loved it very much! And can’t quit thinking about it already!
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Richard M. Cook
5
A Magnificent Story Worth Reading Again & Again
Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2023
Verified Purchase
• This is a fantastic book that I highly enjoyed, despite the author’s love affair with commas. So many commas. Seriously. (If you're missing a comma, it's probably in this book.) Unless the author was getting paid by the comma, she could remove many of the unnecessary ones (e.g., the ones mid-clause) and no one would notice. But that’s about the only bad thing I can say about this book (and yes, I recognize it’s petty). It is a great read the first time through, and I suspect it will be even better on subsequent reads. • The rhythm of the author’s prose might take a little while to get into, but I found it hypnotic and suggestive of a time long past. Although it’s not written in first person, this hypnotic style of repeated phrases, long sentences with lots of parallelism, and just spot-on descriptions made it FEEL like Addie LaRue was talking to me directly about her incredible life. The prose is so well written that it's almost poetry. • The story puts a unique twist on the old theme of a Faustian bargain. Reminiscent of the phrase “Be careful what you ask for,” Addie is forced to deal with the aftershocks of an agreement made in haste. Her anguish is palpable, her decline gut-wrenching, her desire to be remembered, insatiable. You will ACHE and FEEL so much for this character by the time the story is over. The tension between Addie and the antagonist (Luc) is so exquisite, that you’ll find yourself holding your breath when he shows up, wondering what torture is in store for our heroine. Luc’s barbs are sharp, but the retorts and sarcasm Addie throws back at him eventually become just as keen and cutting. You will plead for her to get back up off the mat, and cheer for her successes, the limited few she scores. I can’t say enough good things about the plot and the author’s captivating writing style. • Some reviews have complained about the scenes being too brief. I respectfully disagree and found that plot device necessary to move through the many years of Addie’s life. Otherwise, the book would have been 1000 pages long. The author gives us just enough color and substance to fill out the scene, makes her point (which is typically about the conflict between Addie and Luc), and then moves on. At times, it was a breathless read for me, the style allowing me to devour many chapters before I looked up and realized I was late for an appointment! • From a historical aspect, I also enjoyed the book very much. I personally enjoy historical novels, alternative history dramas, and time travel stories. This book was a little light on the historical details for my tastes, but what the author provided makes perfect sense when you think about it. After all, would you necessarily KNOW a person would become famous or which art piece would become worth millions of dollars if you were living as a CONTEMPORARY with that person or artist? No, you would not. Thus, it is so for Addie LaRue. • This is not a time-travel story with knowledge brought into the present from some time in the future. Instead, it is a wonderful story that explores the psychological weight of living much longer than others around you, and in Addie’s particular curse, how she maneuvers through many societies that will only ever interact with her on a purely superficial level. Like the classical character Sisyphus, Addie LaRue bears the weight of trying again and again, only to fail repeatedly… until she doesn’t. • Since my reading time is limited, there are very few books I would go back and re-read. This is one such book.
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91 people found this helpful
Stephanie
5
Clever and reflective
Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2024
Verified Purchase
I am pleasantly surprised by this book. Around 25% through I thought it was slow and to be honest, boring. However, around 40% I became invested and by the end I couldn’t stop crying. Do not be deterred by the slow start. Keep reading. Addie is a dreamer. She was born during the early 1700s in a small French village and wanted more than anything to explore and truly live. She manages to escape marriage until she doesn’t. She runs away, prays to a dark god for help and they make a deal. Addie becomes immortal and invisible in every sense of the word besides its physicality. She’s meets the same people over and over again and none of them remember her until 300 years later when she meets Henry in NYC. The love story that unfolds is far from simple but it is magically wonderful. The author really does something special here exploring the nuances of time; the longest storms, the shortest days and the fleeting moments. Addie Larue is clever and reflective. I’m still lost in thought in the best kind of way.
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