Having just finished this book a few minutes ago, this review will probably be a barely coherent mess, but let me try to convey my feelings as best I can.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue follows the winding tale of Addie LaRue a girl made immortal through a Faustian deal, but is also cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Three hundred years later, she finds someone who can remember her.

Style.

The most remarkable trait of this book is the style, a style I will call neither good nor bad, but characteristically Schwab’s. This book’s writing is what happens when Schwab is no longer tethered, freed, if you have read her other works, her Villains or Shades of Magic series, you will be intimately familiar with it. Rife with wistful metaphors and long, winding monologues like circling hallways. You will notice however, they’re usually cut short in her past works, you might not have noticed it then, but you’ll notice it after reading this book. Because they never stop in this book, they stretch on and on, and as she returns to her favourite turns of phrase again and again until they’ve stuck so far in your head you wonder how she thought of so may metaphors for the colour green. That’s the thing about this book that still wins my heart, this is Schwab condensed. This is Schwab’s meandering, wistful, nostalgic style first and characters and plot second. This is a book of atmosphere.

I was thinking of splitting this book into a list of pros and cons, but there are no objective elements in this. It’s biggest pro for one reader, a reader who wants to escape to ancient French villages and fantastical New York art exhibitions and Chicago speakeasies will also be the biggest con for a different type of reader, a reader who needs a villain to best, a conflict around every corner, a suspense to hang in the air. And suspenses are hung, but then you’re whisked away to a new land as you watch your heroine journey throughout history.

My best recommendation for you is to go to a bookshop and read the first page. If you like it, read it, if you don’t, don’t. You won’t have met the characters, not really, and you won’t have grasped the world, but, it’s most pervasive element, it’s style, is bared for the world to see from it’s very first pages. I mean this with no malice behind it, but I don’t think this is a book that could “win someone over” halfway through, if you love the first page, you’ll love it through and through, if you think it’s a tad boring, well that might stick too. When I see criticism of Schwab’s style, sometimes I agree with it and sometimes I merely understand it. They say she procrastinates plot progression, circles around the story more than she tells it, words flowing out of pages like a waterfall with no drains. For a few of her books-namely Vengeful and A Gathering of Shadows- I did feel pinpricks of annoyance. I felt I’d been promised an action packed plot and was stuck with a several page monologue about abstract concepts of freedom and power and yes, it was beautifully written, but isn’t this in the middle of an action scene? For this book I felt no such annoyance, because this book doesn’t have that promise of fast paced scenes and villains to defeat, and when that wistful, meandering style is the entire book, you can go along for the ride without wondering when the heroes will make their way out of their newest predicaments.

There are some downsides to this, in my entirely subjective opinion. Obviously for people who simply don’t like this type of style, perhaps people who adore the tight framework and near perfect pacing of Vicious may find Addie not as well suited to them. Despite my fondness, a downside is the several times I found I had turned two pages at once and not noticed, either finding myself in the exact same scene or assuming it had ended a page earlier. There are very few pages you could skip over and realise you had missed it by it being mentioned in future prose, while in some of her other works, the status quo changes constantly. In Vicious I was hungry, there was an overwhelming need sowed by Schwab to hear Victor and Eli’s past. In Addie, reading is less like running for my life and more like a lovely ambling stroll down a garden path.

Characters.

This section will be much shorter, congratulations if you’ve made it this far.

What is there to say of Addie LaRue? If you’ve read the Shades of Magic I would say two words, Likable Lila. Lila Bard and I have a complicated relationship, I love reading of her, I love her wit, but if we met in real life I’d keep a wide berth. Many readers have even less favourable ideas, her actions are often played as recklessness, but cross the thin line of “stubborn” to “stupid.” Addie captures that stubborness, that wit, but I was never annoyed with her, never thought I couldn’t have been pushed to do what she had. The slight internalised misogyny inside of Lila has also vanished in Addie, which is a great relief. To someone who hasn’t read Shades of Magic? Addie is someone so desperate for freedom she’ll ask it from anyone, from people she knows she shouldn’t. Reckless, yes, but you grow a respect as you see all she endures.

Luc. Awful. Amazing. Beautiful. Hideous. A real and true dark grey and you’re still not sure if it’s really grey, you’ll never be sure. He’s pitch black at first and Addie splashes like a drop of white, but did it truly lighten him? Or was it a trick of the light? Flowery prose aside, do I want to fuck him or kill him? It changes from moment to moment.

Henry. One of the rawest characters, and despite the pages and pages of Addie, his moments, his glimpses, make me empathise with him most. Best description I can think of is just, heartwrenching.

Bea. Please date me.

Sam. Please date me.

Robbie. I know he isn’t Robbie Valentino from Gravity Falls, but... Isn’t he though? I was honestly too distracted as I read every line of his dialogue in TJ Miller’s voice. It was a problem.

Overview.

jesper: matthias, would you step outside for a moment?

matthias: why?

Potentially, just a modern AU...

The flirting between Nina and Kaz, but also the complete mutual distaste between them, and the understanding that romance is not even on the table. Kaz calling Nina “dear”, Nina batting her eyelashes and saying “you wouldn’t know a good time if it sidled up to you and stuck a lollipop in your mouth.”