Notes about the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue from a bookclub chat with the author at the online Morristown Book Festival 2021:
(Spoiler Alert!)
V. E. Schwab spent 10 years thinking about this story and she spent a lot of time stressing over it because she wanted it to have the perfect ending. She starts very slow and looks at the process as if it is like setting up a chess board. First third is slow, second we play and the final third is the payoff.
The author was 33 when the book came out. She spent a lot of time meditating on the fallacy of adulthood. "At 18 I’m treated like a child and at 19 I am supposed to know what I’m doing", she says. It is a coming of age story in a way.
Many of her books flirt with themes like darkness, death, and immortality. This is true with The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and also with her other books like the Shades of Magic series and a newer one called Bridge of Souls.
Addie LaRue, our brave and stubborn heroine, desperately wants to create art, but can only do so through others because she is always forgotten no matter what. She is forced to abandon her ego and be content with less since her reward is only the creation itself without attribution. The story follows her life and the constant disappointments she has to face as she tries to form relationships with others and leave her mark on the world.
I liked the character development of both Addie and Luc (the god of darkness), but the author also really wanted to share the spotlight with a third character: With Henry she talks about the negative effects of exceptionalism on mental health. He wants to be loved by everyone and is ready to pay any price for it. The characters are complex, multi-dimensional, and easy to identify with due to their weaknesses.
The plot of the story rests more heavily on the strength of Addie's character than her interactions with others like the god of darkness who grants her an unusual variety of immortality. Later in the book, he finds an equal in her in her hunger.
While paging through this beautifully written novel, I kept thinking about legacy and the innately human desire to carve out space in the world and be remembered in a positive light. As a reader, you can't help but wonder whether more time is just what you need to achieve your ambition.
“What she needs are stories.
Stories are a way to preserve one's self. To be remembered. And to forget.
Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books.
Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue