"These Precious Days" by Ann Patchett

I could have sworn that I wrote a blog post about this book! But I see now that I started a draft and never wrote anything. And now, whatever I might have said three weeks ago is gone into the void. 

What remains is that I love Ann Patchett's writing. And especially after having read a couple of her non-fiction collections of essays, I feel like she is my friend. I know she's not, and that this is a completely one-way street, but I feel like I know Ann, and like her, and would enjoy spending time with her. 

“The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” by VE Schwab

This book and I did not get off to a good start. 

Sam read it first. His suggestion that I might like it seemed lukewarm. “It was pretty good.” And then I saw that someone for whose literary opinion I lack respect had read this book and enjoyed it. I don’t know why Sam’s (respected) positive opinion should carry less weight than the (disrespected) positive opinion of one-who-must-not-be-named. But apparently it did. 

Eventually Addie LaRue worked its way to the top of my TBR pile, so I picked it up. And put it down. And reluctantly picked it up. And put it down again. It took me quite a while to get into this book. Like, weeks. If I had reached the point in my life where I could finally allow myself to give up on a book after 50 pages, I would never have finished this one. I found that every time when I had a quiet moment to read, I was instead picking through the mess of old copies of Readers Digest that my mom had brought with her at Christmas. I was actively avoiding Addie LaRue. At first I wasn’t sure why, other than the fact that the story had not grabbed me yet, but I came to realize that the writing annoyed me. I’m sure this is partly because it followed so closely on the heels of Ann Patchett, whose writing I really admire, but I did not like the voice of Addie LaRue. And I was almost insulted by the cadence. 

Why so many paragraphs of one sentence?

And so many fragments? 

(Annoying, right?)

But this week we have been on a journey, and I forced myself to finish this book by packing it and bringing only one other reading option with me. (Well, truth be told, I also brought the last two Readers Digests.) And would you believe that (after reading the RDs) when I finally picked up Addie LaRue again, I got INTO it and ENJOYED it and didn’t want to put it down? 

I hate being wrong. 

Anyway, for those of you who have been living under a rock, here’s the synopsis. Three hundred years ago there was a 23-year-old French girl named Adeline LaRue who did not want to get married. So she sold her soul to the devil in return for what she thought of as freedom, but what turned out to be the inability to leave a mark on the world. No one is able to remember her once she leaves their sight—not even her own parents, who now believe they never had a child. The deal stands until she is ready to give up, and Addie turns out to be quite tenacious, which means her story spans centuries. I found myself more interested in her 21st century life than anything else, but without the rest of it there wouldn’t have been a story.