[10.04.2026] this commentary gets no name

This entry is going to make less sense to you (unless you’ve read the book) and really be more for me to write about nothing and put this shit to rest. I don’t really know where to begin. I really deplore this book which affects how much energy I want to dedicate recapping things. I don’t take pleasure in talking about things I don’t enjoy, so if this “commentary” makes no sense out of context and leaves you wanting, go read it and form your own thoughts. You can also read this review for a generously thorough synopsis and solid points.

First off, I will say, I do not believe bestseller titles are an attribute to a work’s quality of writing or material. It is merely a selling metric. [Maybe ms. Schwab is a genius and knows what the market wants and so writing something so basic and deceptively un-progressive and can be found in Target would sell. And she was right.] I thought this was a very generic book that’s digestible and largely keeps the peace. It really didn’t have me thinking about anything. I couldn’t even bask in it as a fun shit read because I had no fun.

“I love a non-linear story and I wish there was more of it” is what I thought when I first started reading this book. This wasn’t even a non-linear story. This was every other chapter oscillating between the past and the present to meet a word count. The past is meant to function as a means to contextualize the present, but it is so repetitive and vapid. In a book you expect information to compound on itself and to need callbacks, etc. Nothing in this book adds up or provides reasoning and if you think you need to remember a detail you actually don’t because Schwab will explain it the exact same way over and over again. All you need to know is: Addie is perfect yet “cursed” to be immortal and her story revolves around two bunk ass men, The devil, “Luc”, (as she calls him I hate it so bad) and Henry. That's it. Nothing else matters. Go fuck yourself.

The writing pragmatically and grammatically, is fine. Inoffensive. What Schwab attempts to conjure up in poetics is bad, insufficient, uncreative, achingly boring, uncinematic. I feel nothing. Sometimes I worry I have trouble visualizing what I read and this book was gaslighting me into thinking that this was a me issue. The writing fails across the board to evoke anything. Allegedly it took Schwab 10 damn years to write this book and I think that is insane. A large factor that played into this writing was that it felt very YA, in every way. Not to knock YA, because I have enjoyed my fair share, but for a book marketed to adults I was taken aback. I think the dialogue in this book is awful or at least very annoying in a teeny way. There were a lot of sentences, plot sequencing and image conjuring “techniques” done in this book that I actively avoid when writing because they are inefficient/un-impactful.

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I am willing and open to consider every and any fault on my end to explain why I can’t connect with the characters. I can rally behind any idea if you are able to give me at least 5% of a convincing aspect. Schwab is very unconvincing in this book. I can only talk about the characters because there is no plot to talk about. She doesn’t have one bitter thought unless it's warranted. She is perfectly pleasant and without any intentions of causing unjust harm. All the characters are flat.

What makes a character dynamic? I don’t care for Addie and I don’t feel sympathetic or empathetic for her. Schwab attempted to display Addie as perfect and magnificent and bright and shining and beautiful. [schwab doesn’t stop talking about the 7 freckles across her face. Makes me want to claw my eyes out] Addie’s just cursed - as soon as she leaves someone’s field of view they forget about her. First off, I just don’t agree with Addie calling herself “cursed”. Probably because I don’t like her. Idk what she is, but she’s not cursed to me. She made a bad deal out of desperation, knowing she shouldn’t and now she exists like this. Her calling herself “cursed” is victimhood-maxxing: trying to milk empathy out of me.

When interacting with whoever, Addie is either treated meanly/with disgust, confusion or is gushed about and loved. There is no other reaction. Sure people don’t remember you, but you can manipulate them into being nicer. Deceive their memory of you. She’s already stealing and lying in order to survive. For all the trouble Addie could stir up and leave without a trace she stirs up nothing. How much of a tracable existence is required to fuck shit up? You can interact with people. Make them bounce off of each other. Even then I’m like “you’ve lived for 300 years and spent all 300 in the west and only learned western/european languages??? I thought you wanted to see the world.” Addie was so uncreative in her immortality, or at least, the audience wouldn’t know because her escapades aren’t talked about. Just merely suggested. There’s a constant repetition in the past of what she is to learn with her immortality (stealing and lying) and how living like this “informs” her as a character in the future, but we’re in the present and she first has to learn how to do it and it's harddd and punishing booo ( •ᴖ •｡). Whatever. Don’t tell me. Just show me. The gods are mischevious in the lives of humans and she’s now ⅔ god (lives forever and isn’t human). Get messy.

Simply because the book is about a woman’s story doesn’t make it feminist. Why do I have to say that? There is no feminism in the book. Whatever discussions of women’s daily societal limited movement/existence capabilities are strictly utilized to be historical and add to the heavy burden of Addie and I’m just like “okay sorry you’re a white woman in France”. Barely commentary. Purely reference, so I’m just mentally marking it as such since Schwab doesn’t seem to care to make a point about it outside of Addie. (Not saying the book is trying to be feminist or whatever but there is a quality in it that is implying it’s attempting to be). For a story about a woman there’s way too much talking about men. Truly simply.

I see myself as a hopeless romantic. I can entertain a romance. I believe in the possibility of anything and it gets me into trouble. The romantics in this book fail to blossom. Henry and Addie’s plights aren’t unrelateble (even though calling it a plight gives them too much credit), they just lack a human umph - the most essential component. It's so “woe is me. Woe is us. I am completely unrelatable in my sadness and despair.” It feels like the complaints of someone who hasn’t actually had to be concerned about reality. Two people absorbed in themselves and their pitiful ways. Henry (who looks just like Luc btw) sees Addie as this exciting and limitlessly hopeful person. She’s a literal sun to him and he’s always talking about dark clouds and being hated whatever. Henry is this book-ish guy who wouldn’t kill a fly and probably has bad posture (cuz he reads all day). I don’t believe in Addie’s love for Henry. Addie and Henry talk about nothing except for food, trying to discover something new or how pitiful they are in roundabout ways. Between the two idk who annoyed me more, the reader has to deal with Addie poo-ing around and "monologing", but Henry. Henry needs constant reassurance and affirmation. That is emotionally exhausting. He hates himself so bad and it made me hate him too.

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There is a complete lack of gratitude for the essence of existing even in the unfortunate-ness of dealing with it and I think that’s where a lot of my frustration comes from in this book. I mean this as a fundamental component that adds to the vapidity of everything in this book. I don’t know if Addie really expresses gratitude considering she views her immortality as a slip of the tongue, never taking full accountability for her error. Maybe she doesn’t need to directly address gratitude specifically, but rather how do the figments of being content or having satisfaction/making do rather than toiling in your shortcomings ultimately percolate into how you move throughout the world. She can’t leave a trace, but she’s able to do it through people (them making art of her either after sex or her being a random beautiful being in public) and yet it's only of her/for her? Maybe she is rightfully selfish. She’s just not convincing me. She’s constantly “battling” Luc and just going about the day to day. She is literally a spoiled child fighting against the devil. I don’t think that’s where her perseverance should have been poured into. If it weren’t, this story would be very different.]

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I don’t agree with how Schwab frames time within immortality in this book. Addie constantly says she doesn’t have a tomorrow, or words like “before”, “after” have lost their meaning and I am like “okay sure but no”. The sun still sets and rises. She sleeps and wakes up. That’s a before and after. She had a day before where she got up to something and she has a tomorrow where she gets up to something she doesn’t know. That is still a before and after. Try to change my mind, because I am genuinely curious what other arguments could be. She may not be grounded in the reality of whatever, since she can’t affirm her existence within the human world (aka leave a trace), but she lives in her own world and is thus able to always reaffirm her own existence, even if she isn’t conscious of it. Hell, all these artists make their most famous works about her (like omg stfu). That’s a before and after. If time is not linear then it's cyclical, but change isn’t 1 to 1 interactively cyclical so then how is immortal time shaped? Steps? Waves? Mobius strip?

I guess time within immortality (based on the way Addie talks) is a mobius strip, but even for a fantasy, I just did way too much of the work there. And that’s my second big frustration with the book, Schwab relies on the reader to fill in the blank. I am refusing to fill in the plot gaps of your fantasy. Make it up for me. Even if it's fantastical or the dots aren’t all plotted yet, make them connect or wind tighter the zone of implication. Schwab’s writing is like a fitness instructor not having anything for 20 min of a 50 min workout and telling you to figure it out! I’m paying you to give me a workout to follow and I can have my own space for breaks. I paid for this book (actually my best friend did for our book club <3 ily) to imagine a world you constructed.

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On to Henry. Henry wishes to be loved within his lifetime, but oop Luc is petty and tricky, so he makes his lifetime a year, oh no, that way he falls in love and then fucking dies. Dumbass wish. Boy ass poorly thought out wish. Idc if he was about to kill himself because his proposal to his two year girlfriend failed. Your situational thinking and bargaining skills are trash [yea he was made a deal when he was weak. Idc. no sympathy]. I don’t understand Henry’s issue. Time seems to pass by too quickly, he puts time and effort into things (relationships/study) but they never pay off in the way they should, he tries to be himself but no one seems to like it, he always has dark clouds over his head, so he makes a deal with the devil to just be loved? Uhm okay sure, what does time have to do with that? I can follow the thread but when I wrap it back around things come up short. Time and love…

There is something that has to connect these two elements and idk what it is. It just seems like Henry is very depressed to me and has incredibly, annoyingly, low-self esteem. Some things can really just be that simple (though not easily fixable). His wish to be loved makes sense but the time factor doesn’t. I just really don’t get it. His wish revolving more around his self-fulfillment, like enjoying the beauties of life, even if for a lifetime, would have fit much more with Addie and the overall time passage motif. Instead it feels like a half-baked pseudo-consequential romantic plot extension. Even his token Black friend Bea says she’d make a deal with the devil for self-fulfillment (and this is her under the effects of his “curse”), so obviously it was considered but Schwab didn’t think it fit his character arc. Ig he wants enough time to experience love, so experience is the connective tissue between love and time. Once again I just did too much work.

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Page 300 - 400 is relationship endurance run. Things are excruciating. Addie is dramatic asf and Henry needs constant reassurance. It’s all them squabbling and I’m trying to be empathetic to her immortality and his friends not remebering her, but I just don’t give a fuck. For someone who has situational awareness, Addie crashes out too easily. New emotions ig idk. Once again open to entertaining that they are flawed humans in their own emotional way, but you can write an unlikeable flawed character in a way that’s not unintentionally annoying. They sound like a very typical white couple arguing on the street corner in Williamsburg. Idk what it’s about, but it sounds like it’s about a whole bunch of nothing. Addie and Henry are an annoying ass couple.

The end of the book involves Addie making a deal with Luc to become his (her “surrendering”(?) is this whole confusing ordeal randomly introduced), so Henry can live, but the deal is he has to remember her. Luc’s “ok” and makes the deal. Addie goes away and Henry remembers everything because he wrote down all her stories she told about the olden days when they were together and he composes it into this fuckass book and the book, the one you the reader are actively holding and reading, takes the world by storm and everyone finally knows who Addie LaRue is (and is obsessed with her) (-__-)... I hate that a lot. I did not consent to be a participant in Addie’s circle jerking. Calling it a fourth wall break isn’t enough. Like I refuse to believe Addie larue was such a fascinating magnificent being (even as an immortal) that people give this much of a passionate and monetarily invested fuck. It’s not a matter of it being good or bad (even though it is objectively bad). I just deeply in my soul hate that and I hate the way it's written and I could try to explain it but it takes more consideration than what I want to dedicate to this. The ending of this book is really like the ending of a bad movie. It’s somehow rushed, yet refusing to end while praising itself meta-ly. It’s like the dribblings of someone deliriously losing their damned mind in their self-insert fanfiction scribbling nonsense. Actually read the end of this book. Schwab loses every writing sensibility she had. A child narrating a story and saying “and”, “and”, “and”. The ending is so deeply, honestly terrible, but there’s one thing you will know: Addie LaRue always wins in the end.

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Since completing this commentary, I have made plans to part with the book. I am currently away while finishing this review and I did not bring it with me. I’m putting it into one of the many random book nooks that exist in my neighborhood. Community contribution or domestic disturbance? You can decide. If anything, this book has shown me how annoying it is to be in your own head all time. My internal self-repetition, questioning and doubt has been significantly reduced, so that’s a pro. This made me want to read a good book, so now I am reading The Piano Teacher by Elfride Jelinek for a second time.