The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by V.E. Schwab

He always liked learning. Loved it, really. If he could have spent his whole life sitting in a lecture hall, taking notes, could have drifted from department to department, haunting different studies, soaking up language and history and art, maybe he would have felt full, happy. That’s how he spent the first two years. And those first two years, he was happy. He had Bea, and Robbie, and all he had to do was learn. Build a foundation. It was the house, the one that he was supposed to build on top of that smooth surface, that was the problem. It was just so … permanent. Choosing a class became choosing a discipline, and choosing a discipline became choosing a career, and choosing a career became choosing a life, and how was anyone supposed to do that, when you only had one? But teaching, teaching might be a way to have what he wanted.

Déjà vu. Déjà su. Déjà vecu.

That time always ends a second before you’re ready. That life is the minutes you want minus one.