The Invisible Life of Addie Larue

I have never had such a complicated relationship with a book. I need to say that now, outright. I went into this story knowing that I'd be a split reader, but I was surprised by how affected I was by it.

So backstory--four years ago, I wrote a short story about a girl who was cursed to be invisible, traveling the world searching for someone who can see her, and finds that someone at a pub in Oxford. When I began my MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University, I took that emotional, dark short story and turned it into my Master's thesis. The story of a girl trapped in her life, yearning for more, cursed to be invisible, cursed to watch the world pass around her, as she travels across the world and through the decades searching for her truth. I called my manuscript 'The Invisible Century of Evangeline Wyland.'

A month after I graduated from my MA, VE Schwab announced the upcoming publication of 'The Invisible Life of Addie Larue.' My stomach twisted, and my heart dropped. My gut told me that my story was never going to publish after a master storyteller like Victoria already told it, better than I ever could.

Still, I couldn't bring myself to read it for the longest time. I didn't want to read it and see all the glaring faults in my own story, see all the ways I could've made mine better. I knew that if I read it, and then tried to edit my work once more, that it would just be an even more carbon copy of what she'd already created.

And then a friend gifted me Addie Larue, and I couldn't not read it. So I did. I read it on two levels--as a writer and a reader. The reader in me loved it. Loved Addie's rebellious, strong nature. Her longing for human connection. Loved the details of her curse/gift. Loved how she moved through her centuries. Especially loved Henry.

The writer part of me reacted as I expected she would--finding unsettling similarities and beats in our two stories, finding stark differences in the areas where she did it better than me. I was both miserable and in awe at the same time.

I write this with the ultimate goal of relaying--read this book. It's a lovely, haunting, provocative book. The characters are well rounded and complex and likable in their own way. The world is rich and easily escapable.

On another level, for any writers out there reading this who have watched their stories be claimed by another first, who have then read that story and felt what I felt. It'll be a long time before I am able to return to Evangeline's story, if I ever do return to it, but at least now I know what I've done wrong. But at least I can be comforted by the idea that my mind came up with a similar idea as one of the iconic storytellers of the age.

So for someone looking to feel your emotions, to feel the passing of time, read The Invisible Life of Addie Larue and be transported and enjoy!