Line #11 Literature/TheInvisibleLifeOfAddieLaRue


1	[[quoteright:331:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/addielaruecover.jpg]]
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3	''The Invisible Life of Addie [=LaRue=]'' is a 2020 novel by Creator/VESchwab.
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5	France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a [[DealWithTheDevil Faustian bargain]] to live forever and is cursed to be [[{{Unperson}} forgotten by everyone she meets.]]
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7	Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie [=LaRue=], and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
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9	----
10	!! Tropes:
11	* AffablyEvill: Luc.
12	* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: Luc takes the appearance of Addie's fantastic "stranger" in order to talk with her, but his real form appears to be an indescribable array of shadows.
13	* AgeWithoutYouth: Luc briefly demonstrates this to Addie when she complains about his harsh interpretation of her wish, demonstrating that he could be much more violent if he wished.
14	* AloneInACrowd: The reality of her curse sinks in for Addie while in a crowded market, realizing nobody there really sees her or will ever remember she was even there.
15	* AMatchMadeInStockholm: Addie and Luc.
16	* ArrangedMarriage: Addie is forced into marrying someone she doesn't really love. Running away from it starts the plot.
17	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: During World War II, Addie gets captured in France by the occupying Germans and thrown into prison in Orléans in November 1944. The Germans had been expelled from Orléans earlier that summer. By November most of France had been liberated.
18	* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler: Luc more or less gets everything he wants. Whether or not it will last is open to interpretation.]]
19	* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Both Addie and Henry's wishes pretty much immediately go disastrously wrong.
20	** Addie wishes for freedom from responsibility to other people and time to live her life. So she's made immortal and cursed to be immediately forgotten by everyone she meets, and unable to leave any mark on the world. This leaves her entirely unable to live a normal life, build relationships, own property, or find love.
21	** Henry wishes to live up to everybody's expectations and to be "enough" for people. Afterwards, everyone projects their desires and expectations onto him, leaving him unable to maintain any "real" relationships as everyone just sees what they want to see in him.
22	** In both cases, Luc simply points out he gave them exactly what they wished for, and it's not his fault if they don't like it.
23	* BeenThereShapedHistory: Both Addie and Luc shape the history of western art by inspiring or otherwise aiding some of the biggest artists in modern history, from Shakespeare to Beethoven to Wagner.
24	* BigWhy: Addie yells into the night sky demanding to know why Luc has cursed her so.
25	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Addie will be remembered forever after [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall a great novel is made about her,]] and Henry is allowed to live. However, Henry will still die naturally, Luc will still get Henry's soul, Addie never breaks her own curse, and Addie agrees to stay at Luc's side as long as he wishes her to.]]
26	* CannotSpitItOut: Addie is physically prohibited from saying her real name. While she can explain the truth, everyone [[spoiler:except Henry]] seems incapable of hearing or processing it, reacting as though they had temporarily zoned out.
27	* TheCharmer: Henry essentially becomes this. Only problem is, he can't turn it ''off''.
28	* ClingyMacguffin: Addie in the modern day sections cannot get rid of Luc's wooden ring, no matter how she tries.
29	* CopeByCreating: Addie can't make any mark on the world directly, but she ''can'' inspire others to do so, even if she's doomed to never be recognized as the inspiration. She spends a lot of time inspiring works of art.
30	* CursedWithAwesome: Sure, she's effectively a ghost, but Addie's deal does have upsides.
31	** Addie can effectively go anywhere and do anything she wants. She spends three hundred years touring the world and witnessing great events.
32	** Because everyone forgets interactions with her, she can infinitely re-try any social interaction until she gets it right. Addie learns to manipulate people quite well, not by being a master manipulator, but by being able to try over and over again, gaining knowledge each time.
33	** It's ''very'' easy to be a thief when nobody remembers who you are.
34	* DarkIsNotEvil: Luc describes himself this way.
35	* DealWithTheDevil: Addie asks to be freed from an obliged life of arranged marriage, child-rearing, and early death. The price? Why, her soul, of course!
36	* DidntSeeThatComing: Addie steals a book from a bookstore, even having a confrontation with the employee there. She then goes to return it, for cash, not 24 hours later. Of course, after 300 years, she really didn't think that random single employee would happen to be the only person in the world who could remember who she is.
37	* DidntThinkThisThrough: Addie takes a while to learn the ropes of her curse, learning several lessons the hard way.
38	** Renting a room at an inn doesn't work very well when the innkeep immediately forgets who you are, that you rented the room, and that you paid.
39	** Waking up in the arms of a lover is a lot less romantic when they don't know who you are and assume they had too much to drink the night before.
40	** Being forgotten isn't the same as being invisible: Addie still must rely on stealth when stealing, for example, although she can at least attempt to run away until she's out of sight.
41	** Addie really, really should have considered that [[spoiler:with both herself ''and'' Henry having made deals with Luc, Luc was probably not ignorant of their having found one another. Especially since Luc has been watching her for ''three hundred years''.]]
42	** Oddly enough, Addie also has this problem in reverse - after three hundred years of not needing to worry about her reputation or relationship with other people, dealing with someone who actually does remember her is a challenge.
43	* DivineDate: Addie and Luc's relationship begins to appear distinctly romantic in nature. [[spoiler:Because it is.]]
44	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Luc's relationship to Addie increasingly resembles an abusive romantic partner rather than a dark god and their mortal plaything.
45	* DoubleStandardRapeSciFi: The book starts in the aftermath Addie having sex with a guy, knowing full well that he would not remember their encounter. He has no knowledge of consenting, and there is no evidence that Addie told him he would forget her before he made the choice. Plus, Addie apparently has done this often, having her way with others without them ever remembering that they consented.
46	* DramaticIrony: Addie can immediately tell Robbie is in love with Henry, and wonders how Henry doesn't see it. The reader, of course, knows that Henry is deliberately trying to ignore it, regretful for how his curse has affected his friends.
47	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Henry first meets Luc while contemplating suicide.]]
48	* TheEeyore: Henry unambiguously has a depressive disorder, and the warped perspective of a depressed person is ''thoroughly'' explored.
49	* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Henry attracts quite a few guys as well as women.
50	* ExactWords: Addie tells Luc he can have her soul "when she's done with it." Luc later points out it's simply in his own best interest to make Addie's existence miserable.
51	** Addie later attempts the same thing against Luc, [[spoiler:agreeing to stay by his side as long as he wants her to. He agrees. Her plan is to find a way to hurt him until he no longer wants her there.]]
52	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Addie believes herself to be a "victim" of Henry's curse, but from Henry's perspective Addie never has the "frost" over her eyes denoting altered perception. It's not until much later that [[spoiler:Luc admits he deliberately brought the two of them together. Addie's immunity to Henry's curse, and vice-versa, isn't a mistake on his part.]]
53	** Pay close attention to the time Henry's watch displays. [[spoiler: It's counting down to his death, one "hour" a month.]]
54	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Luc is vocally anti-war, among other things.
55	* GayParee: Much of the 1700s end of the plot takes place in Paris, which is romanticized heavily until Addie actually gets there and learns what early-modern cities were really like.
56	* GrayRainOfDepression: Henry on the day Tabitha breaks up with him and he meets Luc.
57	* HerBoyfriendsJacket: Addie's leather jacket in the 2014 scenes.
58	* IDidntMeanToTurnYouOn: Henry enjoys all the positive attention from everyone...for a little while.
59	* JackassGenie: Luc claims to be simply fulfilling their wish, but in both Addie and Henry's cases it's clear he goes well beyond what is strictly necessary to do so. For instance, he also adds an inability for Addie to explain her circumstances or say her name, and makes sure Henry always sees when others' perception of him is altered. Luc even argues that the wording of Addie's wish merely incentivizes him to make it miserable.
60	* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Happens to literally everybody Addie meets. As soon as she's out of their sight, even just a briefly-closed door, they forget anything having to do with her. It even happens to ''reality itself'' in a sense - anything Addie writes down fades, her very footprints disappear, anyone she injures immediately recovers.
61	* LikeAnOldMarriedCouple: Henry and Bea.
62	* LikeBrotherAndSister: Also Henry and Bea. Notably, after Henry is cursed to be "enough" in the eyes of everyone else, Bea is ''not'' attracted to him like almost all women are (apparently even curses can't get around IncompatibleOrientation). She sees him as an ideal friend, and this is so close to normal Henry spends months unable to figure out how Bea has actually changed at all.
63	* LivingMoodRing: Luc's eye color changes with his mood, although it's always a shade of green.
64	* LonelyTogether: One major reason Henry and Addie are attracted to each other is each one's ability to understand what the other is going through.
65	* LoopholeAbuse: Addie can't make any mark on the world herself. She ''can'' interact with others. This includes physically holding their hand and having their hand make a mark on the world.
66	* LouisCypher: Addie nicknames the dark god 'Luc'.
67	* LoveDodecahedron: Robbie → Henry ↔ Addie ↔ Luc...And that's not including all the minor relationships both Henry and Addie have.
68	* MagicContractRomance: Addie and Luc.
69	* MindControlEyes: Henry sees people's eyes glaze over, described as being like frost, when his curse alters their perception of him. This means he can never lie to himself or forget that what they're seeing isn't real.
70	* MuggleInMageCustody: Addie has this kind of relationship with Luc: he is a supernatural entity who cursed her, whom she is dependent on, and with whom she has a love-hate relationship.
71	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Addie does ''not'' take it well when the full weight of writing herself out of Villon's history makes itself apparent.
72	* NoodleIncident: Addie references a number of historical encounters we don't actually see, like flying an aircraft for the first time.
73	* OnceMoreWithClarity: It's not immediately apparent the first time we view the scene that Henry's deal was made [[spoiler:as he was standing at the edge of a roof contemplating suicide.]]
74	* ParanormalRomance: Addie [[spoiler:''falls in love with Luc'' for well over a decade across the 60s and 70s. Luc's attraction to Addie may, or may not, be this as well.]]
75	* PragmaticVillainy: Luc is perfectly happy to offer his deals to people who are inebriated, mentally ill, or on drugs.
76	** Luc founds a series of dim, dark speakeasies across the 1920s. Why? Because it's an excellent place to find emotionally-vulnerable people in a place to make a bad choice.
77	* QuestionableConsent: Both Addie and Henry really bring up the question of people they sleep with are really consenting due to the effect's of their respective curses. In Addie's case, people forget her as soon as their back is turned or if they fall asleep, so they have no memory of meeting this girl or agreeing to have sex with her. For Henry, people perception of him is altered to "be enough" for them, so it's almost like a magical version of catfishing.
78	* RelationshipReveal: It's not clear what exactly happened in New Orleans until late in the book, when it's revealed [[spoiler:Addie and Luc had a loving relationship together, which ended when Luc asked Addie to surrender her soul and claimed to have acted the entire time.]]
79	* RequiredSecondaryPowers: A big part of Addie's curse is a ''lack'' of these. She is immortal and has no need to eat, but will still feel painful hunger pangs if she doesn't. She can't be physically harmed, but any injury still hurts just as much. She can walk endlessly without exhaustion, but her feet still hurt after long enough. She even succumbs to hypothermia!
80	** Her perfect memory lacks the requisite ability to efficiently sort through and index memories, which are so perfectly remembered as to be re-experienced later. By the 2010s, Addie has some tendency to get lost in memories and zone out.
81	* UnreliableNarrator: The reader is only told most of our information about Henry's family dynamics and relationships from Henry's point of view, which is clearly distorted by severe depression. Though it's clear Henry isn't making it all up, it's somewhat open to interpretation just how bad, or not, his family life really is.
82	** The reader is only told how deals work and what can or can't be done with them by Luc, who [[ILied isn't exactly trustworthy about it.]] Notably, he claims he cannot simply alter up a deal once agreed, but later states he can "bend" the rules of an agreement.
83	* SavvyGuyEnergeticGirl: Addie and Henry have this dynamic.
84	* SecretTestOfCharacter: Luc tells Addie that he'll spare Henry's soul if she nominates another to take his place from a crowd of random, unrelated people. Addie does pick someone; Luc doesn't act on it, merely telling her that she's changed over the years.
85	* SexForSolace: Addie.
86	** Henry tries this. It doesn't work.
87	* StealthHiBye: This is more or less the only means by which Luc enters a scene.
88	* ThisIsReality: Henry falls for Luc's offer despite being [[GenreSavvy familiar with Faustian bargains in fantasy]] because this sort of thing doesn't happen in real life, so Luc must be some kind of drug-induced hallucination.
89	* {{Tsundere}}: Luc. Maybe.
90	* VillainousCrush: Luc develops one towards Addie. Addie suspects it's because she grows to know him more than anyone else could, though Luc denies this.
91	* WhamLine: "I remember you."
92	* WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove: Despite claiming to love Addie, Addie suspects Luc fundamentally doesn't understand how humans feel love and seeks to prove it.
93	* WhoWantsToLiveForever: [[DefiedTrope Defied.]] Addie genuinely believes that she will never run out of wonder and beauty to experience in the world, or at least not as long as human civilization exists.
94	* WhoWritesThisCrap: Bea criticizes the end of the InUniverse novel, ''The Invisible Life of Addie [=LaRue=]" as being an unsatisfying and abrupt ending.
95	* {{Yandere}}: An early victim of Henry's supernatural attractiveness is a barista who's so incensed by Henry having a box of Tabitha's things, she ''lights it all on fire in his kitchen.''
96	* YourDaysAreNumbered: [[spoiler:Henry. By the time he tells Addie, he only has a month to live.]]
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Context Literature / TheInvisibleLifeOfAddieLaRue