Photo illustration by Slate. Image by Tor Books.
Do you really exist if no one remembers you? What is time worth? What is love? What exists between life and death? Addie LaRue struggles with these questions in V.E. Schwab’s incredible, though provoking novel. When I tell you, this book was so addicting. I was up till the AMs every night watching this fiery girl fight to write her own story.
“And she is tired. Unspeakably tired.
But there is no question she has lived.
"Nothing is all good or all bad," she says. "Life is so much messier than that."
And there in the dark, he asks if it was really worth it.
Were the instants of joy worth the stretches of sorrow?
Were the moments of beauty worth the years of pain?
And she turns her head, and looks at him, and says, "Always.""
It starts in 1714 in a small French town where a 23 year old girl dreams of a different life. One night she flees into the forest, trying to escape her arranged wedding and her speck of a world collapsing around her. And as the sun sets she prays to a dark god, one of the gods she was warned to commune with.
He answers.
She makes a deal that changes her life in every way possible. He grants her immortality except no one can remember her. The ultimate curse of anonymity. She cannot leave a single mark even though she remembers everything. The moment she leaves someones sight she also leaves their mind.
“Three words, large enough to tip the world. I remember you.”
She lives like this for over 300 years. Witnessing history, finding ways to hide her soul in the cracks of the world. The chapters switch back and forth from different years in her life to the mid 2010s. Eventually she meets a mysterious man named Henry Strauss. (He has a secret of his own!) And her world changes when she realizes he can remember her! Their bond is so complex but so beautiful. Over the course of less than a year they heal each other more than 1,000 years could.
Schwab also shows her complicated relationship with the dark god she names ‘Luc.’ As Addie perseveres, grows, and experiences life you see how she changes but also how she is still human. Somehow Addie is the essence of humanity. How we are neither good nor bad but a collection of memories and choices.
The end will break you heart but the poetic sacrifice and the beauty of remembrance will leave you bittersweet.
Schwab shows how time truly is a gift and that cherishing and remembering those lost or simply gone is a lovely thing. Addie’s character is so full of hope and strength. She is one of my favorite female characters because of the real way shes depicted; highs and lows, love and lust, anger and hope and sadness and everything in between.
“But this is how you walk to the end of the world. This is how you live forever. Here is one day, and here is the next, and the next, and you take what you can, savor every stolen second, cling to every moment, until it’s gone.”
Absolute 10/10! If you are looking for your next read, please read Addie’s story (I promise it will change your view on life.)