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lsmith36 's review for:
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
by V.E. Schwab
Somewhere between a 2.5 and a 3, rounded down because I'm bitter. I was disappointed by this book without having any expectations for it. This book was incredibly boring. Every moment Addie was in the modern day my eyes were glazing over. I just didn't care! It felt like an expose on loneliness and the desire to be loved for who you are, but with the most painfully average storyline ever.
This book had no semblance of a plot, and lacked any real conflict until the last 10%. As a 400 page book, that's a lot of time to be running on vibes and atmosphere alone. And even then, the vibes and atmosphere were baseline at best. We are only given vignettes into different times, and the book does not follow a linear storyline, so we are left bopping around the sorriest bits of Addie's life without actually being shown anything interesting. Anytime there was a moment that could be construed as conflict, Addie flees or Luc shows up to bail her out and have another worn out discussion of "surrender" and whether or not either of them are human. Any time it felt like the story was giving something to care about it switched and gave us nothing. I'm confused as to how this book is historical fiction when it mentioned history in passing and spends most of it's time in 2012/14.
Also, Henry is such an uninspired love interest. He is not interesting, and took up far too much page space. The entire book boils down to a girl who meets a boy who GETS her, who SEES her, and who UNDERSTANDS her enough and LOVES her enough to tell her story for her. This book felt like it had more page space dedicated to him and Luc than the titular character!
All in all, I think this book would have been much better if it had been 100 pages shorter, actually focused on Addie and not her relationship with some boy. Actually, this book would have been better if it was Sapphic. And the fact that this book is marked as LGBT when the addition of same-sex relationships is such a fucking afterthought in this book is a crime and everyone who marked it that can go straight to hell.
This book had no semblance of a plot, and lacked any real conflict until the last 10%. As a 400 page book, that's a lot of time to be running on vibes and atmosphere alone. And even then, the vibes and atmosphere were baseline at best. We are only given vignettes into different times, and the book does not follow a linear storyline, so we are left bopping around the sorriest bits of Addie's life without actually being shown anything interesting. Anytime there was a moment that could be construed as conflict, Addie flees or Luc shows up to bail her out and have another worn out discussion of "surrender" and whether or not either of them are human. Any time it felt like the story was giving something to care about it switched and gave us nothing. I'm confused as to how this book is historical fiction when it mentioned history in passing and spends most of it's time in 2012/14.
Also, Henry is such an uninspired love interest. He is not interesting, and took up far too much page space. The entire book boils down to a girl who meets a boy who GETS her, who SEES her, and who UNDERSTANDS her enough and LOVES her enough to tell her story for her. This book felt like it had more page space dedicated to him and Luc than the titular character!
All in all, I think this book would have been much better if it had been 100 pages shorter, actually focused on Addie and not her relationship with some boy. Actually, this book would have been better if it was Sapphic. And the fact that this book is marked as LGBT when the addition of same-sex relationships is such a fucking afterthought in this book is a crime and everyone who marked it that can go straight to hell.