loregess reviewed on 8/2/2013 + 175 more book reviews

Its tough to describe this book. Its creepy and equally as beautiful for its prose. The story tells of an orphan (never loved by anyone his mother birthed him in a fish stall and left him for dead) who was born w/o a scent of his own but was born, however, with a superhuman sense of smell. He grows up to work in several perfume shops learning how to extract the essence of various flowers. Later he uses these techniques to experiment and kills small animals for their oils in hopes to create a human-like scent for himself. Once he catches a whiff of what he thinks to be the most glorious scent in the world, that of a young virgin, Jean-Baptiste cant help but to kill the girls so that he can bottle their essence forever. He wants to make their scents his own so that he too can be loved and embraced by the people of Paris. The imagery is captivating. At times the author goes into a bit too much detail about something or other, but it does not distract from the book at all. The story ends with a bit of a twist. I give this 3.50 to 4 stars.

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