Perfume: The Story of a Murderer in Read a book from each country

Feb 04, 2012 Rebecca rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: translated, lit-fic, reviewed, france, historical-fiction, sickening, crime, art-history-undergrad, perfume-scent-and-cosmetics, magical-realism

I loved some parts of this book - the descriptions of how things smelt and how perfumes were made - but the murders and such left me cold. There wasn't really anything too gruesome, but nothing that attention grabbing either. I suppose that was supposed to be a reflection of the almost passionless way Grenouille went about his life task... No spoilers, but the ending was pretty odd! ...more

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Dec 15, 2009 Bonnie rated it did not like it

Shelves: lost-in-translation, historical-fiction, 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die

Um...on the upside, if you like to read descriptions of smells, this is for you. Oh, and it was short. On the downside, it was dull and the characters were unlikeable (and not in an OMG the main character is a psychotic murderer way, but in a I don't care if he kills the redhead or gets executed way because he has as little personality as he does body odor--that is to say, none). You'd think a book that involves both a series of brutal murders AND an orgy would be easy to make engaging. You'd be ...more

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Aug 23, 2011 Felly rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: everyone-s-talking-about-this, pick-it-somewhere-and-random, procrastinating-with-this-one, horror-and-murder, 2011, exchange-giveaway

got it in the book drop box together with most book I read this month and last month.
actually watched the film and then read the book.
first in bahasa but the translation is very poor so ended up chuck away this book until finally managed to read it in English version.
definitely totally amazed with the idea of making this book.
lots of word play and if I could read in German which is the original language of this book maybe I will read it again.
in the end of the book same like the film I feel s ...more

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