Written by: Hannah Field | Editor-in-Chief
Adeline LaRue’s story begins in France in the 1700s, when she’s born as the only child to a woodworker and his crass wife. Growing up, she was often scolded for her imagination and curiosity, expected to fit into her role as a woman and housewife with time.
The story itself, however, starts at the brink of dusk — a girl is running for her life through the woods as the sun dips below the horizon. The sound of church bells echo ominously around her as voices shout her name: “Adeline? Adeline?” Her white wedding dress, awfully unfitting, catches on roots as she sprints, out of breath, out of options, through the forest.
But the voices eventually fade. Nobody calls her name.
Addie LaRue, unaware of her fatal — or not-so-fatal — mistake, has condemned herself to a life of solitude and misery. The night of her wedding, after years of protesting marriage to a village man, Addie ran out of options — so she sank to her knees in the dirt and sacrificed her most loved possessions, her artbook and charcoal, to the Earth.
It was a lesson she learned from the oldest woman in the village, Estelle. And, despite Estelle’s warnings — “Do not pray to gods who answer after dark” — Addie did not pay heed to the sun dipping below the horizon when she made her plea.
In the woods, Addie summoned a demon named Luc, a shadow to follow her for years. Addie promised him he could have her life when she was done with it — only as long as he sets her free, all she’s ever wanted, and all she could ever hope to have.
Quickly, Addie comes face to face with the bone-chilling realization that she is no longer remembered by anyone in her life. Her parents claim to have no child when she returns to apologize for running — Estelle only laughs in her face — and Addie must flee, somewhere where the pain is not nearly as sharp and the people she loves do not glimpse at her with nothing in their eyes. So, as she once dreamed of doing, she fled to the heart of France: Paris.
Addie soon learns that she cannot die. She can starve, but it will not kill her, and she can be cut, but they will heal. She leaves no trace behind, as everything she impacts is undone, all because of Luc, whom she knows is listening and watching as the years pass, waiting for her surrender.
But Addie promises with defiance that she will not give in to Luc’s baiting whispers.
In New York City, 2013, Addie sweeps through the doorway of a local bookshop, stolen novel in hand, unaware that the young man at the counter witnessed it — and remembered it. He corners her outside, with Addie’s heart lurching through her chest as she realizes that, after 300 years of isolation, one person remembered her after she left the room.
Henry Strauss has a curse of his own. The entire world bends to his whim and sees him as someone they want, admire or love, rather than the walking mistake he thinks himself to be. But he doesn’t see the milky wash over Addie’s eyes when he corners her outside the bookshop for her thievery, so he lets her go with the book, a copy of “The Odyssey” in Greek, only for her to return.
It is the first time Addie can say her name out loud to a stranger. They gradually get to know one another, contemplate their differences and speak the unspoken — their mutual curses — as they fall in love.
“The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” is a poetic story about love in difficult times, twisting fantasy and romance and explaining the point of being alive — why all should model Addie LaRue’s thirst for life and freedom, and understand the expense, as well as power, in solitude.
Addie LaRue and Henry Strauss are examples of how two people can defy fate, defining what sacrifice truly is and what love might cost you.
Author V.E. Schwab also explores themes such as identity in “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” as Addie searches for herself in a sea of forgetting faces. She learns what it means to be somebody without being known and faces temptation in the form of Luc, the only person who knows her, at least until Henry comes along, only to be revealed as a pawn in Luc’s game.
Luc ties Henry and Addie together, forcing her into a place to surrender when she learns of Henry’s ticking time bomb — as every wish is also a curse. Henry sold his hours, his years, to be liked, and he has run out. Addie makes a difficult decision — a sacrifice — in honor of love to save the one person who has ever seen her for who she is.
One important note about “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” is its slower pace and time skips, as Addie experiences life through different centuries and countries, experiencing war, famine and revolution. Schwab did her history homework.
Secondly, despite Addie’s story being a romantic one, it is also largely a feminist piece of media about a girl thrown into a whirlwind life, discovering new aspects of humanity and herself as she travels through the years.
Schwab’s master writing and craftwork perfectly encapsulates the feeling of finding a buoy in the ocean; she unites two characters with poise and brandishes them with relatability, flaws, human emotions and their pain in a world built to break them.
10/10.
Contact the author at howleditorinchief@mail.wou.edu
