![]() Like all good things, however, it came to an end. I felt it because I did understand, because I was weathering my own storm.Īddie and Henry’s time together was electric for both of them. As Henry spoke about talking to his family who wouldn’t understand because they’ve “never had a day of rain,” I felt it in the pit of my stomach. People aren’t meant for everyone - all you need is to be enough for yourself. Henry understood too late that you can’t make people love you, and if you’re really enough for everyone, then you’re doing something wrong. Henry was so tired of battening down the hatches that he traded his soul to just be enough for everyone. Anything could be a catalyst - a parent’s disapproval, a professor’s admonishment, a lover’s rejection. It didn’t take much for him to start feeling that way again. It was because of Henry that I labeled that period in my life as “the storm.” As Schwab put it, “It would be years before Henry learned to think of those dark times as storms, to believe that they would pass, if he could simply hold on long enough.” Henry’s bouts of rain came about due to his feelings of loneliness, those feelings of not being enough that seem to be all too common among people my age. As a human, he had experiences that put everything I was feeling at the time into words. As a bookseller, he had that same level of admiration and understanding of good art. Henry was the second character in this novel to strike a deal with the devil, though for very different reasons and for much less time. Just when I thought I couldn’t relate to a character more, Henry burst onto the scene. It was this empathy that I carried with me throughout the rest of the book. Yet despite having access to so many beautiful experiences, Addie felt lonely in her life. Addie truly felt the beauty of the world, and I did too. Her descriptions of watching movies and seeing the sea for the first time brought out the same emotions I felt while sitting in a theater or standing on the shore. Addie deems art as necessary to her survival in her infinitely long life. Schwab’s language captured the feeling of escapism through literature perfectly. And to forget.” Addie’s connection with books is one I related to right off the bat. Everyone she meets forgets her every mark she makes disappears. But she’s also unable to leave an impression or a memory of herself. She is unable to be wounded, fall sick or die. Addie gets her wish for freedom by literally trading her soul, and from that point on, her world is turned upside down. Addie’s story, however, rips away that glimmering facade of the Disney princess and dives in deeper. Anyone who knows me well knows that “Beauty and the Beast” has always been my favorite fairytale, and so I was instantly drawn in. In many ways she’s like Belle from “Beauty and the Beast,” dreaming of adventure in the “great wide somewhere,” with a strong connection to art and a deep admiration of her father. Where do I fit in? Apparently, everywhere.Īddie is a dreamer. A 323-year-old woman cursed with eternal youth and health, unable to leave a mark on the world, and a man cursed with a year of life in which everyone sees only what they want in him. While those elements were present, I was more shocked to find my own experiences reflected right back at me. I expected “Invisible Life” to take me to a new world with magic, Faustian bargains and adventure. ![]() Since my field of study is pure STEM, full of straightforward and rigid answers, I find it necessary to have an outlet for all that goes unexpressed. It’s why I try to visit The Metropolitan Museum of Art when I come home to New York and I take a trip to the University of Michigan Museum of Art almost every Friday at school. It’s why I spent the year between ages eight and nine imagining myself at Hogwarts and why now, almost 11 years later, I undertake “Harry Potter” movie marathons biannually. Whether it be books, television, movies or a trip to a museum, I have been using art to get outside my own head from a very young age. Schwab.Īrt has always been my medium of escapism. This time, it was “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” by V. So I did what I always do when I need to put my mind elsewhere: I picked up a book. As I finished up my first semester of college from my childhood bedroom, I felt it - the feeling I would come to label as “the storm.” It was the first time I felt my mental health truly dip, a loneliness that seeped through my entire body into my bones. COVID-19 had just booted me out of Ann Arbor and sent me home.
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