The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - a character driven study of memory and mortality

The themes of the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab are mortality and memory. However, the hook is the character studies and relationships of the three main characters.

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I wont give away the ending but I will talk about twists

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In 1714, Adeline LaRue makes a deal with an ancient power that gives her conditional immortality but with the price that she cannot be remembered. Three hundred years later, having spent centuries as a ghost in history, she encounters a young man named Henry who can remember her. Because he has made a deal of his own, to be seen as whatever people need him to be.

And that meeting changes everything for Addie, Henry and Luc, the name Addie gives the ancient power who made the deals with both of them.

Not being able to be remembered isn't an uncommon conceit. Heck, the Silence from Doctor Who is an alien race where that's their hat. However Schwab goes into much greater detail than I have seen before in explaining how Addie's situation works.

She is unchanging. Not only does she not age, she cannot starve and immediately recovers from any injury. Mind you, she still experiences the injury and starvation. They just can't physically affect her. She also has a perfect memory, starting from the beginning of her deal. However, she cannot change anything. She cannot hurt someone or write anything down or even leave footprints. There are loopholes. She can steal and she can inspire and give ideas that will linger when memory does not.

Schwab does a good job making Addie sympathetic, even while making it clear that she can be very amoral and selfish. Of course, those are traits that she needs to function.

Henry is her opposite, his deal making him unforgettable. He also suffers from severe depression, which many reviews note is realistically displayed. While Addie is portrayed as a survivor, Henry is not. Like Addie, a large part of what makes him sympathetic is making his more difficult traits relatable.  

It takes a good chunk the book to reveal that Luc is actually one of the main characters. In many ways, he reads like an homage to Neil Gaiman's Morpheus. (I'm not sure if that is the compliment it once was) He is capable of great cruelty but his work also makes the world a richer place. And his relationship with Addie brings him for an impersonal force of nature to something not quite human.  

The characters and their connections are not healthy. However, they are compelling. And while none of them are entirely human anymore or ever, they are believable.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a fantasy that works by being grounded in human nature.