Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

87 reviews

winsomefish's review against another edition

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challenging dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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caitc90's review

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille known as Grenouille was born in 1738 in the gutters of a fish stall and tossed aside. He was born without a scent, every woman who cared for him noticed it. Although he was born without a scent, he had the most incredible sense of smell, he could smell where you came from, what you ate for lunch yesterday wearing the same outfit, he could differentiate between the scent of clear glass and green glass. No one was capable of smelling the way Grenouille was. Even with his tremendous smelling ability it wasn’t until he was in his 20s and isolated himself from humanity that he realised he himself was scentless. After this realisation he set off to make the perfect perfume.

Part one of the book gave me such a creepy crawly feeling I didn’t know if I would continue reading the book. I think as a mother myself the scent of your baby is such a particular scent, to think of a baby that didn’t have one felt so strange and uncomfortable. The description of him as a child creeped me out so badly and the way his actions were explains it made me stop reading a couple times.

After the initial grossed out-ness, part two of the book was pretty slow. I was expecting more murder because of the title. It was part 3 that got me interested in the book again, when he came out of isolation and went back to making perfumes.The ending of part 3 was not what I expected but it was funny to imagine.

The end of the book was perfect, I couldn’t think of a better way to end it. I’m not a fan of historical fiction but I thought it sounded interesting, also there’s a movie to watch too so I thought it would be an enjoyable read. I’m glad I read it but I think I’ll likely stay away from historical fiction for awhile.

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viscountess_black's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

When I tell you I was enthralled from the beginning, I'm not exaggerating. This story captured me because of the author's writing but mostly, because of its main character, who is a psychopath (if you tell me otherwise, I'm not gonna believe it) with one clear goal: to become the greatest perfumer of the world. I'm just gonna tell you this tiny bit of a spoiler: He fucking does.

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