[Steeplechase | BWF] The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab ★★★

[Tien]

🎧 Audiobook Review 🎧

A very interesting premise wherein a young woman is cursed to be forgotten by all she met as soon as a door closes between them and being an immortal to boot, this makes a very long and lonely life. And just to be contrary, she refuses to give up and finds joy in all the wonders the world can offer her. Until the day, a young man said, "I remember you". There's no spoiler here... this is in the book's description and yet, we didn't get to that part until 3 hours later in the audiobook. It is a 17-hour long audiobook. I kept waiting for the twist and it came about halfway through the book (about hour 8.5) and then the next twist, at around 85% mark of the book. So, yes, I found this extremely slow and I already sped it up to 1.5x.

I found the protagonist a bit annoying to start with but she grew to be quite likeable and strong. I definitely love her at the very end of this book. The switch between times (past & present) got me a bit frustrated at times; if I was reading a physical copy, I may choose to skip chapters to stay in a particular set of time but I wasn't. Overall, I'm not very keen on the story or character but I do love the 'lessons'. YOLO!

Steeplechase - 5x addiction
BWF - Team Sassy Sisters - Letter S - 291x fantasy romance

[NancyJ]

Great review. YOLO is right. If you do it right, once is enough. I found it sad that no one remembered her, though she found some creative ways to be a muse anyway.

I used to like long luxurious audios, but I find it harder to maintain my interest now. 17 hours is a very long time on audio, even at 1.5 speed. I know it shouldn’t feel any different from reading two 9 hour books back to back, but it does. If I stretch a book out too much I forget details. It helps if I have a kindle so I can do a quick search if I need to check something.

[Tien]

"long luxurious" - I don't think I'd call any long audios luxurious lol

I'd get too impatient with long audiobooks so I'd usually read big books rather than listen. This one was only 400ish though so is that usually 17 hours? Felt heaps longer than it should be.