Book Review: Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan

Pages: 358

Genre: YA Fantasy

Pub. Date: May 7, 2013

Source: Publisher for review

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Goodreads says, "Stephen has been invisible for practically his whole life — because of a curse his grandfather, a powerful cursecaster, bestowed on Stephen’s mother before Stephen was born. So when Elizabeth moves to Stephen’s NYC apartment building from Minnesota, no one is more surprised than he is that she can see him. A budding romance ensues, and when Stephen confides in Elizabeth about his predicament, the two of them decide to dive headfirst into the secret world of cursecasters and spellseekers to figure out a way to break the curse. But things don’t go as planned, especially when Stephen’s grandfather arrives in town, taking his anger out on everyone he sees. In the end, Elizabeth and Stephen must decide how big of a sacrifice they’re willing to make for Stephen to become visible — because the answer could mean the difference between life and death. At least for Elizabeth."

Stephen lives alone in his New York City apartment even though he is only a teenager.  He doesn't have any friends, he doesn't attend school and he only emails with his father from time to time.  This is because Stephen is invisible.  Due to a curse his grandfather put on his mother before he was born, Stephen is one hundred percent invisible.  His mother, before she died, helped him cope with this curse and because of her, he is able to make due; however, he misses his mother tremendously.  A new girl, Elizabeth, moves into his apartment building and sees him.  No one has ever seen him before and he is completely blown away.  A friendship quickly moves to a romance and they try to figure out why not only can Elizabeth see him, but also how they can break this horrible curse.  As they delve deeper into the details of Stephen's curse, Elizabeth finds out some life changing things about herself and why she can see Stephen.  Andrea Cremer and David Levithan's Invisibility is a unique fantasy and action packed adventure.

At first I thought Elizabeth was just a normal girl, but slowly we learn why is she is able to see Stephen.  Readers also learn more about her past, why she has moved, and how this has impacted her socially.  I really enjoyed her relationship with her brother, who is extremely outgoing, spunky, and one of my favorite characters.  Stephen is also an interesting character and as I learned more about his family's secrets, namely his grandfather, I became more and more intrigued.  To me, it seemed that Elizabeth and Stephen weren't friends for very long and all of a sudden had strong feelings for each other; so, you could say there was a case of the insta-love in Invisibility.

Invisibility has a lot of action in it, which I wasn't expecting along with the fact that this novel is way more of a fantasy than I initially thought.  I thought the focus was going to be on Elizabeth and Stephen's relationship, but it sort of switched the focus to magic.  There are curses, people with powers, spellseekers and cursecasters. I tend to really like the fantasy genre, so I didn't mind this, but readers should know this in advance as there is a whole magical world in Invisibility.

The first half and the ending of Invisibility were very entertaining, but the middle of the story dragged for me.  Each chapter jumped from Stephen and Elizabeth's point of view, which worked, but on the other hand, it didn't stop me from being kind of "meh" about the middle of the book.  

I will definitely be putting a copy of Invisibility in my library classroom, because I think many of my students will enjoy it.  Final verdict: I felt Invisibility was no doubt entertaining, but ultimately, just an okay read.