Meet Addie, a young woman in 18th century France who makes a deal with the devil for immortality. The side effect? She is forgotten by everyone she meets. Wandering the world alone, she lives as an unseen muse to artists, with only the devil as her companion. One day in modern-day New York she encounters someone who can remember her…will this change her fate?
Most of our readers this month read and enjoyed The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue. Some read the print version, and others listened to the audiobook (and one used both). Something we hadn’t thought about was that the audiobook could only describe the images (drawings, sculptures, music, photographs, and paintings) inspired by Addie. However the pictures are included in the book edition, and one reader who started the audiobook finished with the print version which gave them the opportunity to see the illustrations.
Although the book seemed to start slowly – something commented on by several of the group, it did speed up towards the end. We found the jumping around in different times meant that keeping the thread of the story could be quite difficult. Several readers commented that the early historical sections went quite slowly and maybe could have been made a bit shorter. However another member felt that the background and history were needed to give a good understanding of Addie’s relationship with the darkness. This background did give us an idea of who Addie was and where she had come from – even if neither we nor her knew where she was going. As the story progressed, we liked the way that what had felt like random pieces started fitting together, making the tale more interesting and immersive.
We felt that Addie’s character was believable, and she came across as very human and relatable. Although she could only really observe and pass through other lives, we thought it showed how your choices can isolate you, and how even your smallest interactions have an impact which you may never know about.
The character of Henry reminded us of modern celebrities, trapped into a constant performance to match the perceptions of other people. The way that Addie and Henry’s two curses seem to balance each other out was interesting and a clever twist.
The book may be being made into a film. While it does have potential, we felt that this would be easy to do badly and not do justice to the story.
We briefly discussed whether living forever but always being forgotten was a choice that any of us would want. As Freddie Mercury sang “who wants to live forever?“. The answer was none of the SWFT Wellbeing Reading Group.
A hit with most of our readers, we scored The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue, an outstanding 5/5!
Our next meeting is on Wednesday 19th August at 1pm when we will be discussing Out of Time by Jodi Taylor.
The Time Police are used to travelling into the past, but this time history has come to them. What links a dinosaur discovery in Wales, Romulus of ancient Rome, a conspiracy involving the Princes in the Tower, and a cover-up at Time Police headquarters? The team must untangled these seemingly unrelated threads to discover the truth – and find out what is wrong at St Mary’s.
Copies are available from the Education Centre Library at Warwick Hospital – and as this book was donated to us by the publisher, you can keep your copy!
As always, you are welcome to take a copy even if you can’t make the meeting – we appreciate thoughts shared by email and in person
Previous book reviews are now up on the Library Blog
