This book blew up on TikTok (BookTok) especially since V.E. Schwab is such a popular writer. And I agree: her writing style is fantastical and beautiful. Personally, I’m not really into the whole parallel timeline stuff because it was confusing at times. Also, the book was slow, like astronomically slow, and I forced myself to finish it because there must be some reason it was so popular. The buildup was painstakingly long and the climax was predictable, but the plot was moving… for someone out there.

The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue follows Adeline, a girl who escaped an arranged marriage in her village in France 1714 by making a bargain with the devil (we don’t really know if he’s the devil or not, just a supreme supernatural evil). She is cursed to be immortal, but everyone she meets forgets about her once she’s out of sight. The book follows her life over 300 years paralleled with her current life in modern day New York City. 

She starts out in France during the 1700s and eventually travels through Europe and the rest of the world. We are introduced to characters across her three centuries, yet the first mention of a single POC is in New York City in 2014. So basically Schwab is telling us that after three hundred years and traveling multiple continents Addie’s first significant encounter with POC is in the 21st century?

I understand that diversity may not be as common in Europe in the two hundred years Addie was there, but POC definitely lived throughout most of Europe. Especially given that Addie had to live in poverty for most of her life, she would have encountered several POC as statistically more impoverished people are POC than white people. And the fact that every single character in the entire three hundred years is white except for one insignificant side character is shocking. 

Addie LaRue is a fantastical memoir for the author where she poured out her experiences and emotions into the story. So let’s say I gave Schwab the benefit of the doubt that no POC impacted her life enough to be recreated into a fictional character. And to that I say that it is FICTION. It doesn’t matter whether or not a character matches exactly to Schwab’s real life version because it probably wasn’t a perfect replication to begin with. At that point is it such a huge deal to make a few physical feature changes? 

I can tell from her writing that Schwab is an amazing author. That doesn’t change the fact that her story was subpar and there was a singular crumb of diversity in it. 

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: 2 stars

POC representation: 0 stars