Summary:
France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.
But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
My take: 4 looks
Such an adorable story! Addie is born in France in the 17th century and is a very strong and independent young woman. As she sees her friends marry and start families, she realizes that she is well on that path herself. At the last minute before her nuptials, Addie makes a deal with the devil to never belong to anyone in exchange for her soul. The timeframe? Forever. She has to willingly release her soul for the deal to end.
And thus begins centuries in Addie’s life. How does the Devil ensure she continues to be free? As soon as she is out of the sight of anyone, she is instantly forgotten. When a waitress leaves and comes back, she has no recollection of the young woman at her table. When she goes into a dressing room, the clerk has no idea that the clothing in which she leaves the store was not the clothing she wore in. Any man she dates is always a first date for him. Addie can’t even say her full name, Adeline.
As much as Addie enjoys the anonymity at first, she becomes more and more driven to make an impact on someone, anyone, who will carry her into the future as a memory, however small. That is where the introductions to each chapter are so clever. They are all works of art, which have a date, artist name, description, and a short note about the subject. The reader begins to see small slivers of Addie in these works, as she has been a muse for artists and their works throughout the years. But there are never any photographs, and anything that Addie creates or writes instantly disappears.
However, one day, when Addie tries to steal a book, the manager of the book shop stops her because he recognizes her. She has finally found the person with whom she can share experiences that last more than one meeting. And, oddly, Henry seems to be as drawn to her as she is to him. Why can Henry remember her? Has she finally found the life she wanted when she met the devil all those years ago?
And speaking of the devil, whom Addie takes to calling “Luc” … what a fun character! Schwab writes him as a cad, jealous, inventive, romantic, yearning, spoiled, and definitely aware that he has never met anyone like Addie. Able to change his image at will, he is described as “less a man than a collection of features”, and forms from smoke and shadows. He visits her regularly, especially on their “anniversary”, to see if she is ready to give up her soul. He is her only constant companion as the story spans centuries, going back and forth in the timeline to tell her story.
The three main characters, Addie, Luc, and Henry, are all beautifully presented. All elicit moments of frustration, happiness, and smug satisfaction from the reader. All are fully dimensional. The storytelling is beautifully fluid, causing me to stop on occasion and jot down a sentence or paragraph in my reading journal. I was both dismayed and overjoyed that I had never experienced any other works by this author. Dismayed because I have missed out, and overjoyed because I am looking forward to reading them soon (darn you, library hold wait!).
Highly recommended.
