Helpful Score: 1
Summary:
Eva's grandmother is a wonderful scent designer. She evokes emotions with the blending of each scent into perfume that is sought after. Unfortunately, she passes away and leaves her home to Eva. As Eva is clearing out the house, she runs into a squatter. Gabriel is a med student that has been breaking into Eva's grandmother's house to study in a quiet atmosphere. The two of them build up a relationship and work through cleaning the house together. When they are finally overcome with curiosity, they go into the special scent making room and find a scent that was specially made for Eva. When Eva puts the scent on, her entire world changes.
Eva and Gabriel begin a love affair, even though Gabriel already has a girlfriend. This love affair continues with Eva moving to Louisiana with him as he continues school. While he is in school, Eva meets Michael. Michael is a free spirited, very selfish artist. He awakens something inside of Eva that doesn't seem to be tied directly to her new scent. With this new confusing man in her life, what is Eva to do?
My thoughts:
This is an interesting book to review. The plot premise is intriguing. Since scent is tied so strongly to emotion and memory, there is a lot to the perfume changing a life aspect. The downfall of this book is the premise's delivery. There were times that the descriptions were spot on. I could easily picture the scene, they were full of life, vibrant, and melt worthy. At other times, the simplest language was used, everything was flat, the characters were lifeless. This pendulum of excellence and mediocre was irritating. There was so much potential and Berwin should amazing style in so many places. I WISH it was held throughout the book. Perhaps this is a building novel in which over time the amazing descriptions will stay from beginning to end, but for now, I'm not completely sold. I would definitely be on the fence about picking up another of her books.
Eva's grandmother is a wonderful scent designer. She evokes emotions with the blending of each scent into perfume that is sought after. Unfortunately, she passes away and leaves her home to Eva. As Eva is clearing out the house, she runs into a squatter. Gabriel is a med student that has been breaking into Eva's grandmother's house to study in a quiet atmosphere. The two of them build up a relationship and work through cleaning the house together. When they are finally overcome with curiosity, they go into the special scent making room and find a scent that was specially made for Eva. When Eva puts the scent on, her entire world changes.
Eva and Gabriel begin a love affair, even though Gabriel already has a girlfriend. This love affair continues with Eva moving to Louisiana with him as he continues school. While he is in school, Eva meets Michael. Michael is a free spirited, very selfish artist. He awakens something inside of Eva that doesn't seem to be tied directly to her new scent. With this new confusing man in her life, what is Eva to do?
My thoughts:
This is an interesting book to review. The plot premise is intriguing. Since scent is tied so strongly to emotion and memory, there is a lot to the perfume changing a life aspect. The downfall of this book is the premise's delivery. There were times that the descriptions were spot on. I could easily picture the scene, they were full of life, vibrant, and melt worthy. At other times, the simplest language was used, everything was flat, the characters were lifeless. This pendulum of excellence and mediocre was irritating. There was so much potential and Berwin should amazing style in so many places. I WISH it was held throughout the book. Perhaps this is a building novel in which over time the amazing descriptions will stay from beginning to end, but for now, I'm not completely sold. I would definitely be on the fence about picking up another of her books.
Helpful Score: 1
I got a copy of this book to review through the Amazon Vine program. The concept sounded very intriguing to me. The writing was very sensual and deliberately paced. While I enjoyed the beginning of the book, I found the wrap up of the story to be bewildering and unsatisfying.
Evangeline is eighteen when her grandmother passes away and leaves her her house. In that house Evangeline finds a gift from her grandmother, a scent that will make Evangeline incredibly desirably to all who smell her. Evangeline quickly finds that this scent is more of a curse than a gift.
This book was an interesting read. It was very sensual, beautifully written and deliberately paced. Evageline struggles with choosing between her current lover, Gabriel (who she is comfortable with and believes she may be in love with) and Michael, a painter who calls to Evangeline's dark side and doesnt seem to notice her smell.
I had a bit of trouble relating to the main character in this story. Evangeline doesnt ever really seem to have a purpose or something that drives her. The reason behind her decisions is never really explained or understood...she just kind of drifts from one situation to the next.
Neither male character is all that engaging either. Gabriel is obsessed with Evageline but in a oddly distance way; especially as he is further and further drawn into his medical studies. Michael is just plain strange, and I never really engaged with him as a character at all.
Despite the intimacy between the characters they all felt strangely distant to me. About two-thirds of the way through the book I found I just didnt really care what happened to any of them.
There isnt much of a plot per say...basically Evageline is trying to figure out if she will sucumb to Micheals darkness or not. There is quite a bit of sex in this book, its not incredibly explicit but it is definitely there...so just something to be aware of.
I did enjoy the beautiful writing style of the book. I also enjoyed the perfume lore sprinkled throughout. The perfume lore was very intriguing and interesting to read about.
The ending was ridiculous. It doesnt really make a whole lot of sense. Its one of these kind of endings that will make you scratch your head and think Huh, well thats totally inconsistent with what we were told happened in the rest of this story. I really didnt like it and pretty much thought it ruined the whole book.
Overall an okay read. The writing is very beautiful, the perfume lore throughout is intriguing, and the concept is interesting. However, the characters were distant and hard to relate to and there really wasnt much of a plot. I also thought the ending left a lot to be desired. This book wasnt a horrible read, but I cant honestly say I would recommend it.
Evangeline is eighteen when her grandmother passes away and leaves her her house. In that house Evangeline finds a gift from her grandmother, a scent that will make Evangeline incredibly desirably to all who smell her. Evangeline quickly finds that this scent is more of a curse than a gift.
This book was an interesting read. It was very sensual, beautifully written and deliberately paced. Evageline struggles with choosing between her current lover, Gabriel (who she is comfortable with and believes she may be in love with) and Michael, a painter who calls to Evangeline's dark side and doesnt seem to notice her smell.
I had a bit of trouble relating to the main character in this story. Evangeline doesnt ever really seem to have a purpose or something that drives her. The reason behind her decisions is never really explained or understood...she just kind of drifts from one situation to the next.
Neither male character is all that engaging either. Gabriel is obsessed with Evageline but in a oddly distance way; especially as he is further and further drawn into his medical studies. Michael is just plain strange, and I never really engaged with him as a character at all.
Despite the intimacy between the characters they all felt strangely distant to me. About two-thirds of the way through the book I found I just didnt really care what happened to any of them.
There isnt much of a plot per say...basically Evageline is trying to figure out if she will sucumb to Micheals darkness or not. There is quite a bit of sex in this book, its not incredibly explicit but it is definitely there...so just something to be aware of.
I did enjoy the beautiful writing style of the book. I also enjoyed the perfume lore sprinkled throughout. The perfume lore was very intriguing and interesting to read about.
The ending was ridiculous. It doesnt really make a whole lot of sense. Its one of these kind of endings that will make you scratch your head and think Huh, well thats totally inconsistent with what we were told happened in the rest of this story. I really didnt like it and pretty much thought it ruined the whole book.
Overall an okay read. The writing is very beautiful, the perfume lore throughout is intriguing, and the concept is interesting. However, the characters were distant and hard to relate to and there really wasnt much of a plot. I also thought the ending left a lot to be desired. This book wasnt a horrible read, but I cant honestly say I would recommend it.
