I’ve high key been smitten by V.E. Schwab since I first read her in the Monsters of Verity duology. She has this lyricism and nuance to her writing that is unmatched, and most attractive to me is how she digs deep into the dilemma of being human and weaves her findings in such seamless artistry you’re left gasping at the end of the book.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue was no different. In this one we follow Addie, a young French girl trying to captain her own ship against the grain of her current society. Trying to own herself, in a world where women belong to everyone else but themselves. So, in order to live life on her terms, she strikes a deal with the devil of her dreams.

We meet her in the late 17^th century and journey on with her well into the 21^st century. How, you may ask? Well, there are just some deals worth living a million lifetimes to escape or delay, and this is one of them.

Luc, reaper of souls and maker of dreadful deals, aka the grim reaper as I’ve come to call him is the darkness itself. He, however, meets his match in Addie’s light, and may even have made his one grave mistake, perhaps bigger than all his victories combined, this time around.

In Luc’s character, V.E. Schwab explores the darkness within us, the trade-offs we make with it in desperate times and when no one else is watching and how we beat ourselves black and blue dishonouring the deal or running from its consequence. She shows us how we flirt with our darkness, push it away, draw it close and call on it when our world seems to be falling to pieces. How darkness, at times, is the only thing that truly and fully gets us. How, try as it may, however, it can never fully know us, never consume us. How we, can never completely surrender to the dark.

Also, darkness is a philanderer. He is never satisfied with what you give. There are always souls to reap, deals to strike, bargains to be made and lives to lose. There is no joy where he is, no love, just mere possession and trading.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, for me, was very metaphoric. Perhaps it’s got a lot to do with the point at which the book found me in my life. I found it imbued with a lot of commentary and discourse on mental health. How we each are capable of leaning into the darkness or holding it at bay and how, most often than not, real love is the one thing that can cast the darkness away. And real love, comes with sacrifice.

V.E. Schwab is a master storyteller, she will lure you into her story, entertain the socks out of you while dishing such vital and intricate jewels. It’s not very often that I close a book and immediately want to start it again. This, most certainly, is one of those books that begs to be reread over and over and over again. Hopefully, each time, we walk away with a different kind of spell to use to co-exist with our darkness. 

There’s something profound in this story that can only be fully appreciated once you engage with it one-on-one.