The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

[Gaston de Foix]

Has anyone on the forum read this? I have a small question about the book that has been nagging me ever since I finished.  

[Plessiez]

I just finished this today, actually.  Quite enjoyed it.

The initial premise is very close to Claire North's The Sudden Appearance of Hope, but the story goes in a pretty different direction with it.  I might have liked more of a focus on the historical elements than we actually get, but ultimately that wasn't the story the book was about, which is fair enough.

Spoiler

(And also, I'm not sure I've ever seen a depiction of the French Revolution in fiction by anyone other than Hilary Mantel that didn't irritate me, so wasn't too displeased to avoid that at least.) 

The two nagging thoughts I had (one mildly spoilerish, one utterly trivial, both spoiler protected just in case):

Spoiler

First thought:  The narrative makes a fairly big deal out of Addie's perfect memory.  And in Chapter 10 (set in 1719), it looks like Addie drinks champagne for the first time (at least, her intental monologue describes "her first sip ... unlike anything she's ever tasted").  But just a few dozen pages earlier, in Chapter 7 (set in 1716, three years earlier), when she's listing all the things she's done with her life to Luc, she mentions drinking champagne (""I saw an elephant ... I had Champagne, drank it straight from the bottle").  

It seems a bit silly in hindsight, but for about half the book I was convinced this was meant to be a clue that Addie's memory wasn't as perfect as she thought (and/or that Luc was altering it somehow), and that this was going to be important to the novel's conclusion.  But I guess it's just a continuity error.

Second thought: I found it weirdly jarring to keep seeing champagne (the drink) written as though it was Champagne (the region of France).  That said, subsequent googling suggests that while what I thought was the 'correct' capitalization is commonly used, the alternative is preferred by several style guides and most (if not all) champagne producers. 

( ... I said this was trivial.)

 

[Gaston de Foix]

18 hours ago, Plessiez said:

I just finished this today, actually.  Quite enjoyed it.

The initial premise is very close to Claire North's The Sudden Appearance of Hope, but the story goes in a pretty different direction with it.  I might have liked more of a focus on the historical elements than we actually get, but ultimately that wasn't the story the book was about, which is fair enough.

  Reveal hidden contents

(And also, I'm not sure I've ever seen a depiction of the French Revolution in fiction by anyone other than Hilary Mantel that didn't irritate me, so wasn't too displeased to avoid that at least.) 

The two nagging thoughts I had (one mildly spoilerish, one utterly trivial, both spoiler protected just in case):

  Hide contents

First thought:  The narrative makes a fairly big deal out of Addie's perfect memory.  And in Chapter 10 (set in 1719), it looks like Addie drinks champagne for the first time (at least, her intental monologue describes "her first sip ... unlike anything she's ever tasted").  But just a few dozen pages earlier, in Chapter 7 (set in 1716, three years earlier), when she's listing all the things she's done with her life to Luc, she mentions drinking champagne (""I saw an elephant ... I had Champagne, drank it straight from the bottle").  

It seems a bit silly in hindsight, but for about half the book I was convinced this was meant to be a clue that Addie's memory wasn't as perfect as she thought (and/or that Luc was altering it somehow), and that this was going to be important to the novel's conclusion.  But I guess it's just a continuity error.

Second thought: I found it weirdly jarring to keep seeing champagne (the drink) written as though it was Champagne (the region of France).  That said, subsequent googling suggests that while what I thought was the 'correct' capitalization is commonly used, the alternative is preferred by several style guides and most (if not all) champagne producers. 

( ... I said this was trivial.)

 

Spoiler

Glad you enjoyed it.  I didn't pick up on the continuity error you spotted but I too waited for the other shoe to drop in the Luc-Addie relationship and it never quite did.  I thought the Gods after Dark would include more than Luc and have conflicting agendas or purposes.  But Luc's origin, purpose etc. remained quite opaque. 

So my question, which is similarly quite trivial, is about the book's title.  The point is made more than once that the book does not have Henry's name on the cover to emphasize this is Addie's story.  And when I read that in my ebook I assumed the hardcover would not have Schwab's name on the cover to emphasize the fairytale like nature of the story and the story nested within a story thing.  But it does.  I don't understand it.  Or I suppose I do because Schwab's name sells books.  But then why make such a big deal about it in the novel?

The book, unavoidably, remained me of the Age of Adeline down to sharing a name with the title protagonist.  I wonder whether this was unconscious bias? 

 

[Plessiez]

Spoiler

I didn't think about it much at the time, but you're right that the focus on the in-universe book being published without an author's name is a bit odd.  Maybe there was originally some plan to publish the book that way?  (Doesn't really seem to make sense to me though, if there was.) 

It also wasn't completely clear to me if the in-universe book was meant to have the same contents as the one we were reading (well, the same except the last couple of chapters, I guess), but on balance I thought probably not.  There are quite a few Henry POV chapters that I can't imagine the in-universe author would have included, for instance.

I'd not heard of the film The Age of Adaline before your post.  Reading about it, the plot of that film does seem quite similiar to elements of the book, and I agree that the protagonists sharing a name would be a bit of a strange coincidence if it's not meant to be a deliberate reference.

 

[Gaston de Foix]

On 10/21/2020 at 5:20 AM, Plessiez said:

  Hide contents

I didn't think about it much at the time, but you're right that the focus on the in-universe book being published without an author's name is a bit odd.  Maybe there was originally some plan to publish the book that way?  (Doesn't really seem to make sense to me though, if there was.) 

It also wasn't completely clear to me if the in-universe book was meant to have the same contents as the one we were reading (well, the same except the last couple of chapters, I guess), but on balance I thought probably not.  There are quite a few Henry POV chapters that I can't imagine the in-universe author would have included, for instance.

I'd not heard of the film The Age of Adaline before your post.  Reading about it, the plot of that film does seem quite similiar to elements of the book, and I agree that the protagonists sharing a name would be a bit of a strange coincidence if it's not meant to be a deliberate reference.

 

I think your point about the Henry chapters not making sense from an in-world perspective where he is the author of the book is absolutely right.  

Re the movie, I think this is a case of unconscious bias or influence.  Although kind of shocked no one has caught it yet. 

 

[Lord Patrek]

On 10/22/2020 at 5:14 PM, Gaston de Foix said:

I think your point about the Henry chapters not making sense from an in-world perspective where he is the author of the book is absolutely right.  

Re the movie, I think this is a case of unconscious bias or influence.  Although kind of shocked no one has caught it yet. 

 

Well, hopefully not, for the author at least. The novel has been quite successful thus far, which means that a lawsuit could possibly materialize. . .