The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by V.E. Schwab

The sky outside is a static gray, a thin mist of rain blurring the buildings. It is the kind of day designed for wood fires, and mugs of tea, and well-loved books.

But that is the brilliant thing about New York. Addie has wandered a fair portion of the five boroughs, and still the city has its secrets, some tucked in corners—basement bars, speakeasies, members-only clubs—and others sitting in plain sight. Like Easter eggs in a movie, the ones you don’t notice until the second or third viewing. And not like Easter eggs at all, because no matter how many times she walks these blocks, no matter how many hours, or days, or years she spends learning the contours of New York, as soon as she turns her back it seems to shift again, reassemble. Buildings go up and come down, businesses open and close, people arrive and depart and the deck shuffles itself again and again and again.

What a luxury, to tell one’s story. To be read, remembered.

There is no violent push in one direction, but a softer nudge a hundred different ways, and now all of them feel out of reach.