The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

There was so much that I loved about this book. The concept is so good, and handled so well. It's tragic, poetic, funny, fantastic, and relatable all at once. The thing I enjoyed most is how the main character's curse is used to explore some familiar human experiences in the extreme. I won't spoil any details of the curse/curses here but they work as great allegories for how some people genuinely experience the world and posed some excellent philosophical questions throughout the book that I'm still thinking about.

It's very much folklore/fable and the story feels fresh and new while also possessing a timeless quality that makes it feel like it's always existed. It reminded me of A Picture of Dorian Gray meets the Story of the Magic Thread/The Boy and The Golden Thread.

If this book could have been a bit shorter I would have given it 5 stars... there are some great reveals and twists but once I got the gist of where it was going, I was ready for it to be over about 80 pages before the end. Not that those 80 pages were bad! This book is beautifully written and highly quotable all the way through... but with a story that feels so clear and simple at its core, and characters that are so well defined from the moment you meet them, the excess was more noticeable. I also felt like the ending pulled some punches, that ultimately diluted the experience for me.

I'd still highly recommend this book to anyone interested in an imaginative, fantasy fuelled, introspection inducing character study.