Diverse Reads Annotation

About

Author: V.E. Schwab

Title: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Genre: Adult Fantasy/Historical Fantasy

Publication Date: October 2020

Number of Pages: 444, hardbound.

Geographical Setting: Paris, New York

Time Period: Modern (18th/21st Centuries)

Series (If applicable): N/A

Plot Summary

Addie LaRue was born in the late 17th century in rural France. Over the first few chapters of the novel, we see her chafe at the societal expectations for women at that time, dreading and doing everything she could to avoid her fate of marriage. She manages to avoid it for much longer than many of her peers but is finally forced to marry a widower at twenty-three. In a fit of desperation, she makes a Faustian Bargain with a demon or some sort of malicious being to avoid living a miserable life. She receives what she desired, more time, with the stipulation that no one will ever remember her. If she leaves the room, anyone immediately forgets who she is. Because of this, she can’t write at all and is forced to survive by stealing and sex work in Paris for the first decades of her curse. She can’t form any meaningful relationships and it is impossible for her to find a permanent home. She has many strings of one-night stands with both women and men. She often keeps going back to the same people for what are a relationship to her and a casual fling to them. Every so often, the demon visits her and they have quite a lot of sexual tension. She moves around and eventually ends up in New York City, where the main story begins in 2014. Things go on more or less the same, with Addie slowly finding ways to survive to spite the demon, until one day she walks into a bookshop and a man working there remembers her. They are drawn to each other, and it’s only a matter of time before her secret is revealed. Why can this man, Henry, remember her when others can’t? What does this mean for her curse? And what will happen when Luc, the demon of the dark, finds out?

Subject Headings:

Historical Fantasy, Book Club Best Bets, Multiple Perspectives, Strong Female, Bisexual, LGBTQIA, Be Careful What You Wish For (Novelist, n.d.)

Appeal

Terms that best describe this book

1. Suspenseful (Novelist, n.d.)

2. Sweeping (Novelist, n.d.)

3. Haunting (Novelist, n.d.)

4. Engaging (Novelist, n.d.)

Similar Authors and Works

Relevant Non-Fiction Works and Authors

1. Andersen, H.C. (1913). Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales, Second Series. Project Gutenberg.

This book contains several of Andersen’s famous stories. The idea of a Faustian Bargain (like what Addie ends up in) is common in a lot of folklore and myth, but a nice one involving women and girls desiring something so far out of their reach would be The Little Mermaid, which is contained in this book.

2. Marchini, A.M. . (2023). Women in the French Enlightenment. Routledge.

Marchini’s book discusses women’s role in eighteenth-century France, which relates to Addie’s origins and personal history. She frequently interacts with French philosophers and thinkers and spends time in their Salons.

3. Kittredge, K. (2003). Lewd & Notorious. The University of Michigan Press.

This book covers women who didn’t confirm in various ways but especially covers women who had relationships with other women. Addie is bisexual and has several relationships with women throughout the book, so this would be an interesting insight into what it was like for women who didn’t follow the traditional path (at least not perfectly, anyway) in the eighteenth century.

Relevant Fiction Works and Authors

1. Barker, E. (2013). The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic. Viking. – Be Careful What You Wish For, Strong Female, Sweeping (Novelist, n.d.)

2. Arden, K. (2017). The Bear and the Nightingale. Del Rey. -- Historical Fantasy, Strong Female, (Novelist, n.d.). Both protagonists are young women who suffer quite a lot from their hatred of women’s lot in life and get in a lot of trouble to avoid their fates. Vasya and Addie are actually really similar as young women, with Vasya living in what is now Russia during the early Medieval era, and Addie living in early eighteenth-century France.