Jean-Baptiste Grenouille – human or monster? Both? Just when I found myself feeling sympathetic to this young man who grew up without human kindness, the monster side of him would emerge and I could sense his scorn for people he fooled with his pretense of humanity. This was a beautifully written book about the importance of smell that we all take for granted and how one man with an incredible gift took advantage of people.

Very original, but I didn’t like it overall. I didn’t mind the darkness, but I felt this book could have been so much more. I didn’t like the feeling of being in this wacko’s head and I felt the author was overly descriptive of scent. I know that was the premise, but I felt it was overboard. It ended very strangely as well.

This book disturbed me.