My Rating: 6 out of 5
A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.
A young woman makes a deal with the darkness to have more time. What she ends up with is three hundred years. Three hundred years where nobody remembers her name or her face. Three hundred years and absolutely no way to leave a mark upon the world.
Then, one day, Addie stumbles into a bookstore and everything changes…
This was a beautiful – tragic, but beautiful – story about life, consequences, and the gift of time. It is a story about how far humans will go just to be remembered.
This story blew me away. I was expecting more of fantasy story, but this was part fantasy, part historical fiction. We get to glimpse Addie’s life over the course of three hundred years, from her early years in France to modern day New York City. Addie has lived through it all. She’s fought her way through wars, has watched the world grow and change, has watched history and culture being made. Addie has lived a dazzling, yet lonely life, with no one’s company except for that of the devil who cut her a deal.
When Addie meets Henry she finally finds someone who understands her and sees her for who she truly is. Their story is a touching one, about two people struggling to be loved and to be seen in a world that too easily forgets.
The relationships in this book are deep and complex. While I loved all of them, my favorite was that between Addie and the world itself. In the course of three hundred years she learns to navigate the world, survive during harsh times, yet still finds beauty and awe everywhere she looks. Addie has such a realistic and humble perspective on what it means to really live and I greatly admire her for it.
Once Upon a Spine 
This is on my TBR
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