In this episode, we discuss Part One of V.E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, discuss its genre and its style, defend the flexibility of third-person present-tense narration, and start to follow breadcrumbs into the past.

Next week, we continue our reading with Part Two.

Unanswered Questions:

• Who or what is the darkness with whom Addie makes her pact?
  
  
• If ideas and art and belief are the same — or at least similar — then what are memories?
  
  
• What’s so special about Henry, anyway?
  

Footnotes:

• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
  
  
• V.E. Schwab
  
  
• Will Staehle
  
  
• Julia Whelan
  
  
• François Villon
  
  
• Charles Perrault
  
  
• The Sword of Shannara
  
  
• The Many-Colored Land
  
  
• Daggerspell
  
  
• The Eye of the World
  

To support the podcast, join the conversation on Discord and get access to monthly bonus episodes, please visit Patreon.com/NextWord and pledge your support!

Stars and Swords: Footnoting Genre Fiction is a Next Word production, written and produced by Alastair Stephens.

Copyright © 2024 Stars and Swords. All Rights Reserved.