At a glance
Pages444
First published2020
Setting1714 France to 2014 New York City
Audiobook17h 30m · Julia Whelan
AudienceAdult
ISBN1803364181
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
by V.E. Schwab
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for: Readers who love lyrical, emotionally patient fantasy — particularly fans of The Time Traveler's Wife or Life After Life — who are drawn to a centuries-spanning premise that doubles as a meditation on women's erasure from history.
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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue follows a young French woman who, in 1714, bargains for immortality only to be cursed so that every person she meets instantly forgets her — a premise V.E. Schwab uses to interrogate women's erasure from history across three centuries and multiple continents. Literary-fantasy readers who prize emotional depth and thematic ambition over propulsive plotting will find this one of the most rewarding fantasy novels of recent years, though those who need a faster-moving narrative may struggle with the deliberately meditative pacing of the flashback sections before the dual timelines converge.
- Is it worth reading?
- For readers drawn to lyrical, meditative fantasy with serious thematic ambition, LuvemBooks considers The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue a strong recommendation — it earned 37 consecutive weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list and placed on year-end "Best Of" lists from Oprah Magazine, NPR, CNN, Kirkus Reviews, and dozens more, reflecting unusually broad critical resonance. Jodi Picoult described it as something that "completely absorbed me enough to make me forget the real world." The key caveat is patience: the novel's emotional rewards are cumulative, and readers who need plot momentum from the first pages may find the centuries-long flashback sections more expansive than urgent. For those who meet it on its own terms, the payoff is substantial.
- Similar books
- Readers who loved The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue frequently gravitate toward books that blend lush atmosphere with emotionally complex bargains or nonlinear time. Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus shares the same lyrical, atmospheric quality and features a fateful deal with high personal stakes. Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See offers a similarly sweeping historical scope and meditative pacing for readers drawn to the novel's WWII-era flashbacks and quiet emotional architecture. Olivie Blake's The Atlas Six appeals to fans of morally complicated characters navigating dangerous magical arrangements. For those who enjoyed the Faustian-bargain thread and darkly romantic tension with Luc, Stephanie Garber's Once Upon a Broken Heart delivers a similarly charged dynamic between a young woman and a god-like figure. Terry Pratchett's Mort offers a lighter but thematically resonant take on a mortal striking a deal with a supernatural force.
- Who should read this?
- The natural audience for The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is adult readers of lyrical, literary-leaning fantasy — particularly those who responded to the emotional architecture of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife or Kate Atkinson's Life After Life. Readers who appreciate thematic depth around women's erasure from history, morally complicated protagonist-antagonist relationships, and cumulative emotional payoffs will find this richly rewarding. Those who prefer tightly propulsive, plot-driven fantasy are less well-served; the novel's centuries-long flashback sections are deliberately meditative. The book's cross-demographic critical reception — from genre outlets to literary venues to Oprah Magazine — reflects an unusually wide potential readership.
- About V.E. Schwab
- Victoria Elizabeth Schwab is an American writer.
- What are the main themes?
- At its core, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue uses its central curse — immortality paired with total unrememberability — to examine the erasure of women from recorded history and the ways legacy accrues only to those permitted to be seen. A Slate review, as surfaced in the novel's reception summary, called it "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" — meaning the thematic inquiry never overwhelms the story itself. The novel also explores memory, identity, and the stubborn human will to leave a mark, with Henry Strauss's parallel storyline — rooted in crushing familial pressure and a near-fatal crisis — deepening the theme of invisibility beyond Addie's literal curse. The centuries-long relationship between Addie and Luc adds a further strand about power, refusal, and what it means to be genuinely seen by another person.
- Awards and critical reception
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue achieved rare simultaneous placement on the New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, and National Indie bestseller lists upon publication, and remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for 37 consecutive weeks through July 2021. It was a "#1 Library Reads Pick" and "#1 Indie Next Pick" for October 2020, a Book of the Year finalist for Book of the Month Club, and was nominated for the 2021 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. Year-end "Best Of" recognition came from a wide range of outlets including Oprah Magazine, CNN, NPR, Amazon Editors, Goodreads, Kirkus Reviews, the Chicago Tribune, io9, SyFy Wire, LitHub, and Lambda Literary, reflecting the novel's unusual cross-demographic reach.
Summarize this book
Is it worth reading?
Who should read this?
About V.E. Schwab
What are the main themes?
Awards and critical reception
Summarize this book
In 1714, Adeline "Addie" LaRue of Villon-sur-Sarthe flees an arranged marriage and strikes a desperate bargain with a god of the night she comes to call Luc — gaining immortality but losing the ability to be remembered by anyone she meets. For three hundred years Addie wanders across history and continents, leaving only faint impressions on the world — a sculpture, an abstract painting, a song called "Dream Girl" — while Luc visits her annually to demand her soul. The novel's dual timeline converges in 2014 New York City, where Addie meets a young man named Henry Strauss in a hidden bookstore — and he remembers her name, because his own deal with Luc means anyone who looks at him sees what they most desire. The result is both a centuries-spanning fantasy and a thematic inquiry into what it means to leave a mark on the world when the world refuses to remember you.
Follow up
How does it end?
Who is Luc and what's his role?
Why can Henry remember Addie?
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Age & Reading Level
Recommended age
Adult
Reading level
Adult
Content to know about
suicidal crisis (Henry Strauss's backstory)
coercive supernatural bargain with psychological pressure
Skip if you want a plot-driven fantasy with consistent forward momentum rather than a meditative, dual-timeline character study.
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