Synopsis:
A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.
France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.
But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
Review:
There is a lot I want to say about this book, but I’ll begin with this: It’s a story I will be thinking about for a while, the ending in particular.
I haven’t read a book that tugged at my heartstrings quite so much in a long time. But that didn’t happen right away; it happened toward the end, after the characters and their lives were established, when I knew what was going to happen, and knew it was going to hurt. But it didn’t quite go as I anticipated, and what the author chose to do there was perfect for this story. It didn’t change the fact that I cried through most of the final 15% of the book.
But that’s the end of the tale, and I should probably talk more about the beginning. Addie LaRue is twenty-three when her unusual story begins. She’s supposed to get married to a man she doesn’t really care for and barely knows, but that isn’t the live she ever envisioned for herself. Instead of going to the wedding as planned, she runs into the forest at the edge of her village and prays to any god that will listen. The trouble is, she lost track of time and forgot her mentor’s advice: Never pray to the gods who answer after dark.
A deal is made, and Addie finds herself inexplicably erased from her family’s history. No one remembers her, and as soon as they turn away, close a door, or go to sleep, she’s forgotten again. Every day is a series of new beginnings, and she can’t leave a mark on the world. But she’s given unlimited time to explore the world.
300 years later, she encounters Henry, the only person who has ever remembered her. There’s a romance between them, and he listens to her stories and continues to remember, even when his friends don’t. But Henry has his own story, and it’s intertwined with Addie’s in ways neither of them could have anticipated. (It’s Henry’s portion of the story that wrecked me toward the end, but as I mentioned above, it didn’t play out quite as I anticipated. I really liked what the author did, and it was so much better than I thought it would be.)
The book moves between Addie’s life in the present (2014), her stories from the past (1714 up to the 1980s), and in the latter half, Henry’s present (2014) and recent past (2013). It may sound like a lot to keep track of, but I thought it was done well. And without the chapters from both characters’ pasts, the ending wouldn’t have been half as poignant. Their histories are what really made this book work for me.
Overall, I thought The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue was a wonderful story.
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