The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
"France, 1714: In a moment of desperation, a young woman named Adeline meets a dangerous stranger and makes a terrible mistake. As she realizes the limitations of her Faustian bargain-being able to live forever, without being able to be remembered by anyone she sees-Addie chooses to flee her small village, as everything she once held dear is torn away. But there are still dreams to be had, and a life to live, and she is determined to find excitement and satisfaction in the wide, beckoning world-even if she will be doomed to be alone forever. Or not quite alone-as every year, on her birthday, the alluring Luc comes to visit, checking to see if she is ready to give up her soul. Their darkly thrilling game stretches through the ages, seeing Addie witness history and fight to regain herself as she crosses the ocean and tries on various lives. It will be three hundred years before she stumbles into a hidden bookstore and discovers someone who can remember her name-and suddenly, everything changes again."
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab started out as a gift from a member of my book club, and I am so glad for it. Schwab has a unique and enchanting writing style that completely enthralled me. It is also one of the only books I've read in the last couple of years that has an ambiguous ending. It isn't a happy one and is up to interpretation.
For a moment there, I found myself piecing together a predictable and happy ending, which didn't happen. Addie is torn between two loves; the darkness and the only human that can remember her. I am inching towards the belief that Addie doesn't totally reject her fate at the end of the novel. I think that she has become more like the darkness than she realizes, and that the darkness gave her this love as both a gift and a way to lure her back to him.
I think it is the game that they both enjoy. The game that they love. In becoming like him, I think that Addie has lost her ability to love. I think that she loved the difference in cadence that Henry gave her life. I think that she cared for him, but she was not in love with him. She saved his soul in exchange for a temporary imprisonment to the darkness.
The game continues.
I do love the framing of the book as Henry recording her life. It really animates the story and invokes even more speculation for the ending.
I adore Schwab's writing style and will promptly be adding more of her work to my TBR.