First book of 2023
Jan. 6th, 2023 01:33 pmI flew home last night and everything went well! None of the ridiculousness that was my trip up, thank goodness.
On the flight I finished up The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which was truly an amazing read to start the year. V E Schwab has long been on my list of favorite authors and she knocked it out of the park with this one.
The book starts in the 1700s, in a small town in France, where Adeline LaRue grows up. She dreams of the world beyond her small town, and she's suffocating under the religious (Christian) ideals of her parents and her future, set-in-stone life as a wife and homemaker. The thing that gives her hope is the witch-like woman who knows of the old gods, Estelle, and the idea that if she prays to these gods, maybe she can be free. But she makes an accidental deal with the wrong god one night after dark, and her fate is sealed to immortality... where no one remembers her the moment she's out of their sight.
Not only is Schwab's prose absolutely stunning, but the structure of the book itself is deeply engaging. You cycle between Addie as she travels through the years, exploring France, moving to Paris, and then beyond, to see the wonders (and horrors) of a world she can know but can never know her. She learns the scope of her curse, and the tiny ways she's able to leave a mark of herself in the flow of time... as well as the many, many ways she's prevented from doing so. And on the other end, you see Addie in 2014 New York, a city she knows almost all the secrets of... until she stumbles into a small bookstore and discovers someone who remembers her the next time they meet, for the first time in 300 years.
That's compelling by itself, but the dance and game she plays with Luc, who is the god who granted her the gift/curse of invisible immortality, is... ooh boy. You both love him and hate him. Or at least, I did. Addie's interactions with him are fascinating and nuanced. He reminds me of the Darkling in the Grishaverse--the kind of villain a lot of people are going to find themselves with the hots for.
On the flight I finished up The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which was truly an amazing read to start the year. V E Schwab has long been on my list of favorite authors and she knocked it out of the park with this one.
The book starts in the 1700s, in a small town in France, where Adeline LaRue grows up. She dreams of the world beyond her small town, and she's suffocating under the religious (Christian) ideals of her parents and her future, set-in-stone life as a wife and homemaker. The thing that gives her hope is the witch-like woman who knows of the old gods, Estelle, and the idea that if she prays to these gods, maybe she can be free. But she makes an accidental deal with the wrong god one night after dark, and her fate is sealed to immortality... where no one remembers her the moment she's out of their sight.
Not only is Schwab's prose absolutely stunning, but the structure of the book itself is deeply engaging. You cycle between Addie as she travels through the years, exploring France, moving to Paris, and then beyond, to see the wonders (and horrors) of a world she can know but can never know her. She learns the scope of her curse, and the tiny ways she's able to leave a mark of herself in the flow of time... as well as the many, many ways she's prevented from doing so. And on the other end, you see Addie in 2014 New York, a city she knows almost all the secrets of... until she stumbles into a small bookstore and discovers someone who remembers her the next time they meet, for the first time in 300 years.
That's compelling by itself, but the dance and game she plays with Luc, who is the god who granted her the gift/curse of invisible immortality, is... ooh boy. You both love him and hate him. Or at least, I did. Addie's interactions with him are fascinating and nuanced. He reminds me of the Darkling in the Grishaverse--the kind of villain a lot of people are going to find themselves with the hots for.