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In a small village in France in 1714, Adeline LaRue makes a deal with the darkness. She wants to be free and have more time in her life. And she gets her wish: Addie stops aging. But anyone she meets forgets her as soon as she leaves their sight. And she can’t speak her name, can’t write or draw or leave an impression behind. She is utterly forgotten and unknown.
She lives 300 years with this curse, taunted occasionally by the ancient god who wants her soul, whenever she’s simply had enough. But Addie keeps moving forward through time, having relationships that last only hours, not being able to put down roots, but experiencing history, revolutions and wars; meeting artists, and wandering cities in many countries.
Then in New York City, she meets a man who, inexplicably, remembers her. It should be impossible. But they connect, and she gets to experience the one thing she hasn’t for centuries. Can it last?
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is heart-wrenching but not in a blatant, over-the-top way. V.E. Schwab is too gifted a writer to tug on her readers’ heart strings with the platitudes and ploys lesser writers would sink to. She walks us through the ups and downs of Addie’s existence, her longing for more than a short provincial life. She creates a character who has endured much and still aches for a better deal than she foolishly agreed to but who has grown strong and tenacious, who refuses to give up. It’s a lovely and poignant book, with some sweet bits of wisdom. I would have thought it nearly perfect if it weren’t for some casual sexual encounters that seemed particularly lurid, though brief.
Rated: High, for between 15 and 20 instances of strong language and 20 or 30 uses of milder language. Violence refers to wars and battles happening but is brief. Sexual content is scattered throughout the book; each instance is fairly brief, but the title character has had plenty of sexual partners throughout her long life. She has to prostitute herself sometimes. There are scenes of drunken, impulsive sexual encounters with strangers, mostly brief, and not just with Addie, for whom most people don’t get to be much more than strangers, but with Henry, the other primary character. Most content includes kissing, but there most sexual scenes include short references to oral sex. Both characters are bisexual, and Henry has longer relationships and brief encounters with either gender.
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