This is it. This is the worst book I've ever read. It has unseated On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

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What in the fresh hell was this.

Okay so I have thoughts. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is about this guy, Jean-Baptiste who is basically a scent savant and psycho. All he cares about is smell and he hates people. He is the best perfumer ever and can smell anything. He can control people with smell! He soon finds that the most amazing, best smell of all is... you guessed it... the smell of virgin women. (sigh. eye roll.) The only way to capture and keep that smell is by murdering them and basically distilling them into scent. Wild times. Chaos ensues.

This book is certainly unique. There is a huge emphasis on scent (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and the perfume making process. Suskind goes into great detail of perfumery, which is sometimes interesting and other times a bit much. The whole book revolves around how Jean-Baptiste sees the world: in the form of scent. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of heart to it.

The writing style is very distant which does contribute to some of the horror element, however I can't say it did anything beyond that. Reading about Jean-Baptiste's heinous actions in a detached way can definitely contribute to the creepiness of the book, but it also just wasn't engrossing. All of the crazy stuff only happens in the last 20% of the book. I must also say I'm not a fan of horror, so horror for horror's sake may be others' cup of tea, but I'm not a big fan of it.

I just didn't get the point. I love reading about villains but I like them more from the perspective of a character study. Everything in this book felt one-dimensional and flat. Jean-Baptiste's motivations aren't compelling and he's just a pathetic guy, and I just didn't care about his story. Until the last 20%, the book slowly plods along. Jean Baptiste is never met with any true conflict and anything he sets out to do he achieves. There was nothing about him that I liked or interested me. Which, maybe some would enjoy with how cray he is, but for me I need something aside from "see how crazy this person can be." I think a big issue for me is that Jean Baptiste and his evilness is not grounded in any sense of reality so there wasn't anything I could get at. I generally love villains, but in those books the villain is succumbing to the pitfalls of ego/fame, obsessive love, beauty, abuse, etc. etc. None of that applies here.

How Suskind used and described virgins in this book was not my fave. Of course female virgins are the zenith of scent, and they smell different from their "deflowered" counterparts. "Budding breasts" were described in detail along with their pre-pubescent qualities and it's just... not my fave. Yeah I get that JB is supposed to be awful, but why do all these male authors have to fall into this obnoxious thing that's been done hundreds of times before. It's like when a male author wants to make a villain, they just make the victims the "pure and special" young beautiful virgins. It's old. It's tired. I then couldn't understand or care about any of the goals or desires of our main character. I didn't understand why our main character cared so much as he has no reason to care about the smell of virgins, and his character doesn't fit into that. You have to really buy that the smell of virgins is so amazing + pure, to which I'm just like... ??? I found it all tired and uninteresting.

I've read plenty of books with heinous, villainous characters, and I enjoyed them because they were compelling and I wanted to learn more about their twisted motivations. With Perfume, I just didn't care about anything or anyone. I also want to add that I'm not big on the horror genre (in particular, I don't like body horror) and sometimes things that happen in horror books/movies can bother me a bit. (I felt this when I read Crimson Kiss or watched The Exorcist.) I understand that this is a "me" problem, and others like the shocking aspects of horror, so take this with a grain of salt.

The ending was very crazy and shocking and full of wtaf moments. Which, I guess congrats to Patrick Suskind because the shock value was there. But it came off as just that- shock value with no real meaning or substance. I think this may also be why I'm generally not a horror fan. Perhaps that's what's to be expected? Shocking, OTT things happen all the time with horror so I'm sure many can appreciate it, but for me that just doesn't work. The ending was just gross and could be hilarious with how outlandish it was. I hate shock for the sake of shock so I was not liking it, but I guess it was what Suskind intended.

I came away from this book getting nothing from it. And I've liked other horror/gothic books I've read (Wuthering Heights, Mexican Gothic, The Picture of Dorian Gray, A Ladder to the Sky) that feature crazy evil people. This is not what I want from my books and frankly I come away from this with a vague distaste in my mouth. Which could be the point, because horror, but I still believe even with horror you should get something out of the book outside of shock. Or I'm not the ideal target for this book. Who knows.

The premise is certainly unique. But it went more and more downhill as I kept reading, to the point where I can say I hated it. However your mileage may vary.

This is one hell of a strange inversion of a Jesus Allegory.

It's absolutely obsessed with the idea of innocence and scents, but more than that, it's a veritable encyclopedia of tons of smells. Borne of effluvia, the brilliance of his nose and his analytical ability sends him to the forefront of the perfumery business in Paris, nearly 300 years ago. Still steeped in effluvia, he discovers a dark secret about himself... he has no scent.

Of evil impulse and indefatigable drive, he recreates all kinds of scents and eventually creates the ultimate essence of innocence... and he, this empty, scentless creature of effluvia becomes, at least in the noses of everyone around him, the ultimate expression of love.

This was very, very fun. I particularly love inversions of old tropes. The ending fits so nicely. :)

A simple tale, a cornucopia of smells and description, and a fitting tale of justice.

"hay en el perfume una fuerza de persuasión más fuerte que las palabras, el destello de las miradas, los sentimientos y la voluntad. La fuerza de persuasión del perfume no se puede contrarrestar, nos invade como el aire invade nuestros pulmones, nos llena, nos satura, no existe ningún remedio contra ella".

The novel exhibits the paramount power of smell, as the ultimate invisible agent in channeling emotions, and the same power used to befool humans and victimize them, as we all perceive smell with our senses before discerning it with our own mind!
It is a perfect psychological thriller, inundated with the gamut of smells!