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readingintheether's Reviews (967)
3.5/5 stars
The Scent Keeper follows a girl named Emmeline raised in seclusion on an island by her father, a mysterious man with a mysterious machine that captures scents as memories in the same way a camera captures images. Her childhood is idealistic and enchanting, but it all comes to an abrupt end thanks to an unthinkably devastating series of events. Thrust into the real world for the first time, Emmeline has to learn to survive in a place where her senses feel both dulled and overwhelmed all at once.
This started off really strong for me. Only a few pages in I was like, oh boy, buckle up for a 5 star read, people. Sadly, that didn’t end up being the case. I loved the beginning. Bauermeister’s writing is so beautiful and magnetic, and the atmosphere she created on the island was so fun to read. However, things start moving really fast and the story starts to get really jumpy. There are one too many “fast forward x amounts of months” moments for me, and I feel like the story could have been improved a lot by fleshing the narrative out more. Honestly, this book could have benefitted by being 100-150 pages longer. There’s a romance element to this book that at first was exciting but ultimately ends up feeling like a pointless plot arc, probably because there are so few meaningful interactions between the characters early on. Everything is assumed, and you’re sort of left to infer on their relationship on your own. Makes the buy-in hard.
Would I read more books by Erica Bauermeister? Absolutely. 100%. I think she’s an amazing author. I did really like this book, I just wish it did more.
(review stolen from Instagram @kennwillreadanything)
The Scent Keeper follows a girl named Emmeline raised in seclusion on an island by her father, a mysterious man with a mysterious machine that captures scents as memories in the same way a camera captures images. Her childhood is idealistic and enchanting, but it all comes to an abrupt end thanks to an unthinkably devastating series of events. Thrust into the real world for the first time, Emmeline has to learn to survive in a place where her senses feel both dulled and overwhelmed all at once.
This started off really strong for me. Only a few pages in I was like, oh boy, buckle up for a 5 star read, people. Sadly, that didn’t end up being the case. I loved the beginning. Bauermeister’s writing is so beautiful and magnetic, and the atmosphere she created on the island was so fun to read. However, things start moving really fast and the story starts to get really jumpy. There are one too many “fast forward x amounts of months” moments for me, and I feel like the story could have been improved a lot by fleshing the narrative out more. Honestly, this book could have benefitted by being 100-150 pages longer. There’s a romance element to this book that at first was exciting but ultimately ends up feeling like a pointless plot arc, probably because there are so few meaningful interactions between the characters early on. Everything is assumed, and you’re sort of left to infer on their relationship on your own. Makes the buy-in hard.
Would I read more books by Erica Bauermeister? Absolutely. 100%. I think she’s an amazing author. I did really like this book, I just wish it did more.
(review stolen from Instagram @kennwillreadanything)
Non-stop, deeply disturbing, all my deepest fears of being lost in the woods come to life. This was a good one!
I was so hot and cold with this one ... at times it could be so wonderful and at times is could be SO BORING. What I did love: written in classic fairytale style, multiple POV, majorly flawed main characters, and some incredible character redemptions!!!
this book is like if a 13 year old wrote an entire novel made entirely of dialogue that they’re guessing would have been used in 1800’s London