The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?

There is a freedom, after all, in being forgotten

Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.

“But isn’t it wonderful,” she says, “to be an idea?”

Déjà vu. Déjà su. Déjà vécu.

Already seen. Already known. Already lived.

Déjà vu. Déjà su. Déjà vécu

“You ask for time without limit. You want freedom without rule. You want to be untethered. You want to live exactly as you please.”

“Tell me instead what you want most.”

She looks up. “I want a chance to live. I want to be free.”

“I do not want to belong to anyone but myself. I want to be free. Free to live, and to find my own way, to love, or to be alone, but at least it is my choice, and I am so tired of not having choices, so scared of the years rushing past beneath my feet. I do not want to die as I’ve lived, which is no life at all. I—”

“I do not want to marry.”

She feels so small when she says it. Her whole life feels small, and she sees that judgment reflected in the god’s gaze, as if to say, Is that all?

And no, it is more than that. Of course it is more.

“I do not want to belong to someone else,”