This is Jenn Delperdang with the Sioux City Public Library and you’re listening to Check It Out.
Today, I’m recommending a book that has had a lot of ‘buzz’ this year—and has been on several of 2020’s “Best-of” Lists--including the NPR Book Concierge. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E Schwab is a sweeping fantasy and an intoxicating story of love and remembrance.
Adeline LaRue is desperate for more time—for freedom and adventure—not a village life and an arranged marriage. But a woman in France in the year 1714 didn’t have a choice. Adeline was warned “Never pray to the gods that answer after dark”—but one of these gods answers her desperate plea and Addie agrees to surrender her soul when she no longer wants to live. The devil is in the details, and as the story unfolds in multiple timelines over 300 years, Addie lives like a ghost—forgotten by everyone she meets, every time she slips out of sight—until she meets Henry in a New York City bookstore in 2014.
With a diverse cast, this darkly romantic and suspenseful book will make you feel Addie’s struggles through time, as she experiences the limits and loneliness of her Faustian bargain. Victoria Schwab’s fantastic storytelling will also let you experience Addie’s triumphs, joy and inspiration.
Kirkus says, “This is the kind of book you stay up all night reading—rich and satisfying and strange and impeccably crafted.”
Check out the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab and other Best Books from this Worst Year at the Sioux City Public Library.
Support for Check It Out on Siouxland Public Media comes from Avery Brothers.
