Back by not-so-popular demand, I’m reviewing another book from BookTok. Basically, if a book gets hyped up on tik-tok, I put it on my “To Be Read” list and I review whether it was worth it or not. This week’s review will be of V.E Schwab’s book “The Invisible Life of Addie Larue.” 

Everyone and their mother (and their grandmother) has been talking about this book. I mean, seriously, everyone hyped up this book to be in their top reads of 2021. And I gotta say, I didn’t LOVE it. Maybe it was because of all the hype around it that I set really high expectations, or maybe I’m just a sucker for enemies to lovers, and when that didn’t happen, I was resentful. 

So here’s the deal. You’ve got your main character, Adeline (Addie) Larue, who is living in early 1700s France. If you didn’t know, early 1700s France wasn’t a great time to be a woman in regards to having rights. Basically, a woman’s worth came from her ability to secure a marriage and bear children in said marriage. 

Addie doesn’t want that life for herself—because duh, she’s the main character and she wants to see the world—and she manages to get out of many marriage proposals by praying to the Old Gods. Until one day, she is forced by her parents to marry a widower in their town and raise the children he had from his previous marriage (and of course have her own as well). Terrified by this fate, Addie goes to pray to the Old Gods. Only the sun is starting to set, and of course, there is one rule about praying to the Old Gods that Addie was advised of: do not pray to the Old Gods that answer after dark. 

So what does our protagonist do: adhere to the advice she was given and accept her fate or pray anyway without considering the consequence? You guessed it—she prayed without considering the consequence and her prayer is answered by a, of course, handsome, morally grey man-demon. 

The man-demon wants to make a deal with her, and not prepared to bargain and blissfully unaware of the importance of semantics, Addie walks into a trap. She gives the man-demon, who will later be named Luc by Addie since he didn’t have a name, her soul and he promises her a life full of adventures and travel that she always dreamed of without ever aging or dying. If you’re reminded of the film “The Age of Adaline,” you should be. Only there is a catch to this deal: Addie is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets, unable to make her own mark on the world. And that right there is a little life lesson, kids: Semantics are important when making deals with demons after dark. 

There is so, so, so much potential with this plot. I was so hooked when Luc and Addie met because there was chemistry, and it would be a classic enemies-to-lovers story. But that is not the direction Schwab took it in. Instead, we meet Henry Strauss, an adorable little bookstore worker, who, by some miracle, can remember Addie in spite of her curse. 

Henry and Addie are cute, and it’s nice to see Addie happy after 300 years of being forgotten. But there’s still Luc. And you find out throughout flashbacks how the dynamic in their relationship changed throughout the centuries. At one point, Addie and Luc are together, but Addie claims to Luc that he isn’t capable of loving anything, let alone her. This is a bold claim to make about someone, but Addie is convinced of it. And because she thinks he can’t love anything, they stop talking for like 30 years. 

We come to learn that Henry also made a deal with Luc, and this is why he can remember Addie. Only Henry’s deal was limited to one year, so his soul is set to be collected by Luc soon. After finding this out, Addie meets with Luc and makes a new deal. She will give Luc her soul and he may have her for as long as he pleases if he will let Henry be free of his deal. 

Luc agrees because he loves Addie, and Addie is all happy and thinks she has the upper hand because she learned her lesson and made sure to include the phrasing “for as long as he pleases.” She believes that his infatuation with her will fade and she will be free of him, not bound to him for eternity. 

But I’ve got some problems with this. What if Addie was wrong? What if Luc really does love her and wants to be with her? Then what she just signed over eternity to be with him? My other problem with this deal is that we start the book with Addie running from a life where she would be trapped under a man. And she literally just sold her soul for eternity to live under a man. WHAT? WHERE DID SHE GO? And for what? To save another man? I’m sorry I just can’t get behind it. 

Overall, it’s a pretty good read. A slow start but can definitely finish in one sitting if you’re looking for some escapism. If you read it and like it then I guess BookTok was right, but if you read it and think meh, thank you for supporting the unpopular opinion with me.