Miss Bukowski hosted its first Book Club session a few weeks ago at Bar Valentina in LES in NYC (shoutout BarVal!) and our first book was The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab. We absolutely loooooved this book and everyone had a very different opinion, which created very interesting debates. Below the questions we used to move the conversation along, and a few quotes to stimulate thought-provoking conversations.
Questions:
- Did you like this book? Why or why not?
- Did Addie evolve significantly as a character over 300 years? How did immortality and the conditions of the deal she made with Luc impact her?
- How well did you think the dual timelines and jumps between the past and 2014 were integrated?
- What is the meaning of “home” in this story?
- Addie had to sell her body in Paris to get food and try to survive. Do you think eternal life is worth what she went through? Why or why not?
- What do you think the author was trying to say with this book about the power or role of art and storytelling?
- If you had been in Addie’s shoes in 1714 France, would you have struck the same bargain with Luc that she did? Why or why not?
- There is a clear emphasis on names in this story. What do you think names represent in this story? Do they give us power over something?
- What are the best and worst things about Addie’s invisible life? What is the emotional toll of being unable to imprint herself on the heart and mind of another person? When does it give her an advantage?
- Which relationship did you find more compelling: Addie and Luc’s or Addie and Henry’s? Did you note their different sexualities?
- Discuss the intense power struggle between Addie and Luc. What did you think about the dynamic between them? How did you interpret the interplay of love or desire and hate throughout their history? How does Addie reclaim her power and agency over the course of the centuries?
- Were you surprised to find that Henry had also made a bargain with Luc or did you already suspect? If you suspected, what clued you in?
- Can you relate to Henry feeling like he’s not enough? What did you think of Schwab’s depiction of Henry’s mental health?
- Luc has made deals with many infamous characters throughout history: Frank Sinatra, Joan of Arc, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Wager, etc. Do you think greatness is worth the high price of your soul?
Notable Quotes:
- “What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?”
- “...it is sad, of course, to forget. But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten. To remember when no one else does.”
- “A dreamer,” scorns her mother.
“A dreamer,” mourns her father.
“A dreamer,” warns Estele. - “What she needs are stories. Stories are a way to preserve one's self. To be remembered. And to forget. Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books. Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.”
- “Blink and you’re twenty-eight, and everyone else is now a mile down the road, and you’re still trying to find it, and the irony is hardly lost on you that in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.”
- “Being forgotten, she thinks, is a bit like going mad. You begin to wonder what is real, if you are real. After all, how can a thing be real if it cannot be remembered?”
- “Adeline has decided she would rather be a tree, like Estele. If she must grow roots, she would rather be left to flourish wild instead of pruned, would rather stand alone, allowed to grow beneath the open sky.”
- “She has the sense that they would have been friends. If he’d remembered. She tries not to think about that – she swears sometimes her memory runs forward as well as back, unspooling to show the roads she’ll never get to travel.”
- “Because time is cruel to all, and crueler still to artists. Because visions weakens, and voices wither, and talent fades… Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end… everyone wants to be remembered.”
