The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue was our March book club pick. 

First up, I was predisposed to dislike this book because I was forced to purchase it when the wait time at the library was too long.  I pre-ordered it at our local bookstore* and a couple of things happened when I went in to purchase the book (double-masked and fully hand sanitized, of course).  One, there was an absolutely adorable shop cat named Oscar who I bent over to pet and the next thing I knew, he was in my lap.  Oscar purred and demanded pets and who was I to not pet him?  Two, the dust jacket of this hardcover was absolutely gorgeous.  You can't really get a feeling for it with the photo above, but the foil and the matte black just make it striking. So I gave it a chance, despite my initial misgivings.

Oscar, of course.

Anyway, this book is unrelentingly sad. Maybe if I were in a different headspace that wasn't quite so THE WORLD IS ENDING, I could hang with Addie LaRue, the main character who has sold her soul to the devil.  But since I'm not in a different headspace, all I can is that this a well-written book with terrible characters and a tendency to go back and forth and back in forth in time. There is a sense of dread and sadness that permeates the entire book, ceaselessly forcing you to acknowledge that choices we make when we're teenagers will always come back to haunt us.

In general this was received well by my book club members and I think I would recommend it, but maybe recommend it for sometime in the future when things aren't quite as bleak as they are right now.

Notable lines:

1) "March is such a fickle month." (page 20) - I read this in that time in March when it's snowing and you have to shovel one morning, only to find crocuses blooming by the side of the road the next.  Fickle indeed.

2) "Freedom is a pair of trousers and a buttoned coat.

A man's tunic and a tricorne hat.

If only she had known.

The darkness claimed he had given her freedom, but really, there is not such thing for a woman, not in a world where they are bound up inside their clothes, and sealed inside their homes, a world where only men are given leave to roam." (page 163)

Reading this passage just after listening to the news report how police officers told women to stay at home after the death of Sarah Everard just made me realize that even though we think 2021 is so much more progressive than 1724, women haven't actually come that far.  (Unrelenting sadness.)

3) "Strange - twice as long away as she was here, and still it feels like home." (page 217)

It's a thing, I think. The place you spend your childhood and adolescence will seep into your consciousness. No matter how amazing your life is, you'll always sort of long for that place, even if that place was not safe or secure or pleasant.

4) "She shakes her head, and says aloud, 'I never understood why I should believe in something I could not feel, or hear, or see.'

Luc raises a brow. 'I think,' he says, 'they call that faith.'" (page 312)

It is the kind of thing that separates the agnostics from the atheists. 

5) "...humans are brief and pale and so is their love." (page 415)  

*By "local" bookstore, I mean, of course, the bookstore located twenty miles away in a nearby town. Retail is DYING in small town America, my friends.