Julian: Welcome back to The Bookaholic Blog Podcast. I’m Julian Thorne. Today we’re talking about one of the great pleasures of being a reader: finishing a book you love and immediately wondering what to read next.
It is my pleasure to be joined by author, publisher, and founder of The Bookaholic Blog, Maria Antokas. Maria’s latest post is titled How V.E. Schwab Sent Me Down a Literary Rabbit Hole, and it explores a phenomenon familiar to many readers: finishing a remarkable book, becoming fascinated by the author behind it, and suddenly discovering an entirely new reading adventure.
In this case, the journey begins with V.E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and leads to the curious mystery novel The Ending Writes Itself, a collaboration involving both Schwab and Cat Clarke under the fictional author name Evelyn Clarke.
Julian: Maria, welcome. Before we talk about the mystery that landed on your reading list, let’s start with the book that caused all the trouble. What was it about The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue that captivated you so completely?
Maria: Thanks, Julian. And before I answer that, I should probably introduce our listeners to you. Julian Thorne is an archivist and historian who has spent years studying forgotten manuscripts, rare books, and the stories hidden inside them. Which makes him the perfect person to talk to about a novel that revolves around three hundred years of history, memory, identity, and the desire to leave a mark on the world.
Julian: That’s a very generous description. Most days, I’m simply trying to keep centuries-old documents from falling apart.
Maria: And yet somehow you always make it sound far more interesting than the rest of us manage.
Julian: Occupational hazard, I’m afraid. Now, tell me about Addie LaRue. Let’s start at the beginning. What was the book that triggered this spiral?
Maria: It was The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. I picked it up expecting a beautifully written fantasy novel, and it absolutely is that. What I didn’t expect was to become completely absorbed by it. One minute I was reading a few chapters before bed like a responsible adult. The next, I was glancing at the clock and discovering that “just one more chapter” had somehow turned into midnight.
Julian: What was it about her story that stayed with you?
Maria: Addie makes a Faustian bargain to escape a life she doesn’t want, only to discover that everyone she meets forgets her the moment she leaves their sight. It’s a fascinating premise, but what really hooked me was the loneliness of it. Imagine living for three hundred years, seeing history unfold around you, yet never being remembered by anyone you meet.
Julian: Most novels use immortality as a fantasy. Schwab seems to treat it as a burden.
Maria: Exactly. I thought I was signing up for a compelling fantasy novel. I didn’t realize the book was also going to hand me an existential crisis every few chapters. What does it mean to leave a mark on the world? Does a life matter if no one remembers it? How do we define ourselves if we can’t form lasting connections? Schwab somehow wraps all of those questions inside a story that’s impossible to put down.
Julian: So it wasn’t simply the story. It was the questions the story raised.
Maria: Exactly. On the surface, it’s a fantasy novel. But underneath, it’s really about memory, identity, and what it means to matter. Addie makes this bargain to be utterly and completely free to be herself, but the cost is that no one remembers her. Every relationship disappears. Every connection vanishes. As a reader, I found that deeply unsettling.
Julian: Why do you think it resonated so strongly?
Maria: Because it taps into something very human. We all want to believe we’ve left some kind of mark on the people around us. Addie’s curse isn’t that without giving up her soul to the devil, she must live forever in this ghost-like state. It’s that she moves through the world without being remembered. Schwab takes that idea and explores it in a way that feels both heartbreaking and strangely beautiful.
Julian: So it lingered with you.
Maria: Very much. Some books entertain you while you’re reading them. Others follow you around afterward. Addie LaRue followed me. I kept thinking about its questions long after I closed the book. What does it mean to be remembered? What traces do we leave behind? And what happens when those traces disappear? That’s when I realized I wanted to read more from V.E. Schwab.
Julian: And that’s where the rabbit hole opens up?
Maria: Of course. This is what readers do. We tell ourselves we’re just going to look up one thing about the author, and three clicks later we’re investigating their entire bibliography, reading interviews, and rearranging our TBR piles. So I started researching Schwab’s other work—and that’s when I stumbled onto something unexpected.
Julian: The Ending Writes Itself.
Maria: Yes. A mystery novel credited to a fictional debut author named Evelyn Clarke—who turns out to be a collaboration between V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke. That alone made me pause. I love the idea of authors playing with identity in that way. I love the idea of authors playing with identity in that way. After spending days reading about a woman nobody can remember, discovering a book written by an author who doesn’t actually exist felt like quite a coincidence.
Julian: That’s such a good connection.
Maria: Right? I went looking for another V.E. Schwab book and somehow ended up researching a mystery written by an author who doesn’t actually exist. That’s not a reading recommendation. That’s a plot twist.
Julian: Your post also touches on something quieter – keeping a reading journal.
Maria: Yes. Because after finishing Addie LaRue, I felt this need to hold onto my reactions. Most books leave you with a memory. Some leave you with a shopping list. This one left me reaching for a journal. When a book makes you reflect that much, it feels almost wrong not to write something down – even if it’s only a sentence or two about how it made you feel.
As a reader, and as a woman who thinks a lot about memory and storytelling, writing those thoughts down feels grounding. It’s a way of saying: this mattered.
Julian: So one novel about being forgotten actually made you more intentional about remembering.
Maria: Exactly. That’s the irony of it. A story about invisibility made me more aware of my own reading life – and more determined to record it.
Julian: And now here we are – a full literary rabbit hole later.
Maria: And probably not at the end of it. Let’s be honest, readers don’t really want the rabbit hole to end. We just want better lighting and more bookshelf space.
Julian: Honestly, I hope not. That’s the fun of it.
Thank you for joining us today. Maria’s post, How V.E. Schwab Sent Me Down a Literary Rabbit Hole, is up now on The Bookaholic Blog—and if one great book has ever sent you searching for the next one, this episode is for you.
Until next time—happy reading. May your next great book lead somewhere unexpected.
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