The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Author: V.E. Schwab 

One-sentence summary: A desperate young woman makes a deal with consequences she doesn’t realize until it’s too late. 

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 8 

Our favorite thing about it: The completely engaging story. 

Our least favorite thing about it: Uh…maybe we wish Addie and Henry could have somehow ended up together? But really, we don’t have much we didn’t like. 

Main Topics of Discussion: Words/Semantics, Art, Being Remembered, Curses 

Our favorite quote: “What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?”

Notes: We mostly just talked about how much we enjoyed reading this book. We loved how the author alternated between past and present every other chapter. Sometimes that is disorienting, but this was done really well and made the story flow perfectly. Those of us who listened to the book said that the audible narrator was excellent. We all really loved the concept and set-up of this book and all the different things this particular curse explored. It was inventive and interesting and such a great backdrop for a story. We thought the “villain,” Luc, was so well done as well. He was multi-faceted and developed as a character right alongside Addie. He was fun and interesting to read. We liked that he couldn’t read Addie’s mind and how that made the story more interesting. We all enjoyed the ideas about “leaving a mark” and being remembered and how that was explored. The idea of words mattering and semantics was fun too. We also loved how the historical events were woven into Addie’s story. It was not heavy-handed, but really added to the color of the book. Overall, we really loved this book. It was easy to get into, easy to read, enjoyable and made us think. 

Memorable Meeting Moments: We met at Dara’s house for the third Christmas in a row! We played our Jeopardy game and made plans for what to eat at our lake house trip next month (that is taking the place of our cancelled cruise). 

What We Ate: Josh made us amazing Philly cheesesteaks with potato croquettes and White Russians to go along with Dara’s amazing Sour Cream Chocolate Cake.