I’m ashamed to say this is my first time reading anything by V.E. Schwab. I have a copy of A Darker Shade of Magic gathering dust on my bookshelf, and I think I might even have a copy of A Gathering of Shadows somewhere, even though I still have yet to read the prequel. Who knows if I ever would have gotten around to reading this one if it hadn’t been for my book club.
It’s delightful. I listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by Julia Whelan, who always does a fantastic job.
It’s a about a girl, Addie LaRue, who grew up in a small town in rural France at the turn of the 18th century. She doesn’t want to live and die in the same town where she was born, but times being what they are, she doesn’t have much of a choice. Her parents arrange for her to marry a widower and they expect her to play along, but Addie is desperate to escape the life they’ve mapped out for her, and when I say desperate, I mean really desperate. Like, make a deal with the devil kind of desperate.
OK, he’s not actually the devil. Addie has been raised going to the local Catholic Church with her parents, but the local spinster, Estelle, who lives in a hut in the woods, scoffs at Christianity and the idea that a supposedly all-powerful God needs a house for his worshippers to pray to him.
Instead, she teaches Addie about the old gods and how to make sacrifices to them in exchange for getting what you want, but she warns Addie not to bargain with the gods who answer after dark.
Well, when her marriage is arranged, Addie sacrifices just about everything she has to the old gods to help her out of it, but none of them respond. By the time someone finally does answer, it’s after dark, but Addie has been praying so hard she didn’t realize the sun had set, and like I said, she’s desperate. She tells the god (whom she ends up referring to as Luc) that she wants freedom and she’s willing to give him her soul in order to get it. But she gets to hold onto her soul while she lives. He only gets her soul when she doesn’t want it anymore. Luc agrees to the deal, but he neglects to make her aware of the terms. Those she has to figure out for herself.
It turns out Addie cannot tell anyone her name, and she cannot leave a mark, which means she cannot write or draw, but it also means she cannot leave a mess or break anything. Also, no one will ever remember her. As soon as they leave the room (or she leaves the room), they forget all about her. So her parents don’t remember her. Her lifelong friend doesn’t remember her. Estelle doesn’t remember her. You get the idea.
Addie can’t hold down a job or even rent a room, because no one will remember hiring her or renting the room to her. On the plus side, it makes stealing very easy because people forget about her as soon as she’s out of sight. The trick is not to get caught in the act, and that comes with practice. You’d think surveillance videos would be a problem for her once those are invented, but since she cannot leave a mark, she doesn’t show up on film. No pictures or videos of her exist, although plenty of drawings of her exist because ideas are more unruly than memories. Just because people don’t remember her doesn’t mean she can’t inspire them with ideas, and once she realizes that, she goes about inspiring as many artists as she can.
Addie also finds out pretty quickly that she cannot die. She can feel pain and hunger, but nothing leaves a mark on her and she doesn’t age.
Fast forward 300 years and Addie is living in New York City and we get a peak at how she’s managed to eek out a life for herself. The closest she can come to having a relationship is by “meeting” someone over and over again. She knows where they’ll be and when, but because they never remember her, it reminded me of the movie 50 First Dates. Until she meets Henry.
Henry is a failed theology student and I’m just now recognizing the irony of a failed theology student in a story in which a really old god plays such a large role. Anyway, after failing out of school, Henry went to work for a local indie book store owned by a woman who lives out of town. Henry is the only employee, unless you count the cat, Book, who lives in the bookstore.
Addie and Henry first meet when she steals a book from the store and he catches her. She continues to walk out the door, assuming he’ll forget all about her as soon as she’s outside, but he follows her onto the sidewalk and confronts her, at which point she apologizes and hands the book over, but he decides to let her keep it since it’s inexpensive. Addie figures Henry must have been right behind her when she walked out of the shop, which is why the curse didn’t have a chance to reset his memory, but the next time she goes back to the shop, he remembers her. And what’s more, she’s able to tell him her real name.
I’m not going to spoil what enables Henry to remember Addie, because I thought it was a pretty great reveal.
The book goes back and forth from New York City 2014 and the rest of Addie’s life leading up to it as she and Luc engage in a battle of wills, and I loved it! I cannot wait to read more by Schwab!