The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by V.E. Schwab

This is a high-concept novel where the concept really works and I almost could not put the book down. Remeniscent for me of books like Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life (which is briefly name-checked in a bookstores scene in this book, a nice nod) and others where a character lives multiple lives or comes back over and over or lives well beyond a normal lifespan, this is about a young 18th century French girl who makes a deal with (sort of) the devil for eternal life. She doesn’t know exacly what she’s getting — Addie just wants freedom and an escape from the narrow life she was born into. What she gets is eternal youth, health, beauty, and invulnerability to any kind of injury and harm — all of which is great, but of course, there’s a catch.

The catch is that no-one who sees, meets, or speaks to Addie can remember her once she’s out of their range of sight. So she can get help from others, have wonderful conversations, even have great one-night stands (though I was troubled by the implication that none of them men she spent the night with over a course of several hundred years ever had to get up to go to the bathroom and then was horrified to find a strange woman in their bed — the complication of people having to leave the room to pee is not addressed in the book). But none of her relationships can ever be permanent, nor can she even have stable work or housing, since nobody would ever remember having hired her or rented to her. She has what she wanted — a life of complete freedom – as she is never able to establish any permanent ties whatsoever.

Then one day, she meets a man who is different. A man who remembers her.

That’s all you need to know about the setup to this book, and if it sounds like you’d enjoy it, you probably would. I devoured it.