No matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark.”

TL;DR: Girl makes Faustian bargain with darkness, Girl becomes immortal and forgotten. Girl sleeps with darkness, Girl meets boy. Boy remembers her. Girls falls in love with boy. Darkness sneers. 4/5, would recommend.

SYNOPSIS:

Picture this. 18th century France. 23-year old Addie (our protagonist) being forced into marrying a widower because she’s way past ‘marriageable age.’

Picture this: Addie fleeing into the woods before the wedding, pleading to every deity to save her.

Picture this: Darkness. A Faustian bargain. A soul sold for a life of immortality and freedom. A girl cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. The devil’s ploy to make her pay.

Picture this: A bookstore. A boy that remembers.

A loophole or another ploy?

RATING & REVIEW: ★★★★

For me, this’s where the story starts to drop. I did not find Henry (bookstore boy) an interesting character and, forgive me, but I started to see why his ex broke it off with him. I kept hoping he wasn’t going to be the love interest because she clearly had more chemistry with Luc, the dark god, and none with Henry.

“She fell in love with the darkness many times, fell in love with a human once.”

But then again, I guess they have more in common when you think about it. Addie lived for 300 years and only saw Europe and the US? She meets Beethoven, Voltaire, Shakespeare. See where this is going?

She talks about how women were constrained throughout the book but not one line as to when they start fighting for their rights. The suffrage movement was over a decade long and throughout that period, Adeline saw nothing. She was just being drawn/painted by…check notes.. white men.

BUT THIS IS FICTION, NOT A HISTORY BOOK. FINE, MOVING ON THEN.

Truthfully, I still found the plot interesting. Especially the scenes with Addie and Luc.

“Don’t you remember, she told him then, when you were nothing but shadow and smoke? Darling, he’d said in his soft, rich way, I was the night itself.”

In the course of the years, he visits her on their anniversary (the anniversary of the deal), to ask if she’s ready to die; every year out of spite, regardless of how hard/lonely it gets, she says no (she’s just like me).200 years of doing the same little dance later, we start seeing the sexual attraction build between the both of them.

“Dine with me,” Luc says as winter gives way to spring. “Dance with me,” he says as a new year begins. “Be with me,” he says, at last, as one decade slips into the next”

I feel like they could have been an exciting enemies to lovers subplot if VE Schwab actually developed them, (or at least just him).

Luc had a lot wasted potential (unless of course there’s a book two). We know he’s a dark god but what else? Why does he need Addie by his side? He somehow loved Addie, how?

“Want is for children. If this were want, I would be rid of you by now. I would have forgotten you centuries ago,” he says, a bitter loathing in his voice. “This is need. And need is painful but patient. Do you hear me, Adeline? I need you. As you need me. I love you, as you love me.”

Addie assumes he’s not capable of love but HOW DOES SHE KNOW THAT? Which is why her trick at the end was so silly? Towards the end she thinks she can make his life so miserable he’ll cast her away. But she’s forgetting, he made her life miserable for 300 years and still she did not yield. How much more a god?

To wrap this up, I really wanted to know what happened to the old man that sat by the street reading his dead wife’s alphabet series? Did he die before he got to Z or did he get all the way?

Overall, this was an interesting and refreshing read and would I recommend it? Yes. The writing was beautiful and engaging. Some reviews say it’s flowery, but I like flowery anyways, so, just my cup of tea.