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A review by jentang
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind
5.0
this book was utterly bizarre, but i loved it. the best way i can describe the MC is, essentially, a hound in a man's form meets mr. hyde meets yozo from no longer human. you can expect a bit of everything from this book, except perhaps real romance, including horror, humor, and the type of wackiness usually found in science fiction books. note that the horror could have you consistently disturbed at the very least, depending on what kind of horror affects you most. the summary makes the book sound like it is entirely focused on murder and that that is where the horror aspect comes in, but there is SO much more to it than that.
you should also expect a lot of intense descriptions of smell and such while reading, although this probably should make sense given the book summary and title. i was a bit fearful at first that this would just be a thinly veiled nose/scent fetish, but after reading, i can confirm that it is, at least, not a nose fetish. :)
although the smell-heavy content mentioned above and/or finding the MC despicable could definitely put a person off this book quite a bit, i didn't really have an issue with it. the book was really well-written, and i have definitely never read anything similar subject-wise. in addition, the plot kept a nice pace, and while reading, a lot of interesting, distinctive characters were introduced; unlike in other books where the side characters simply fade away, in this book, they got their fair share of the spotlight and resolution was achieved for pretty much all of them. to sum it up, this was quite a fascinating little read about an utterly strange little man.
you should also expect a lot of intense descriptions of smell and such while reading, although this probably should make sense given the book summary and title. i was a bit fearful at first that this would just be a thinly veiled nose/scent fetish, but after reading, i can confirm that it is, at least, not a nose fetish. :)
although the smell-heavy content mentioned above and/or finding the MC despicable could definitely put a person off this book quite a bit, i didn't really have an issue with it. the book was really well-written, and i have definitely never read anything similar subject-wise. in addition, the plot kept a nice pace, and while reading, a lot of interesting, distinctive characters were introduced; unlike in other books where the side characters simply fade away, in this book, they got their fair share of the spotlight and resolution was achieved for pretty much all of them. to sum it up, this was quite a fascinating little read about an utterly strange little man.