 Hello everybody, Ian here. Welcome back to another book review. Sorry I was gone all last week, but I had to take a break. I decided to take a week to myself. I did a staycation. And the main purpose of that was to re-energize before we go into the new schedule. If you follow me on Twitter, you already know it. But I will post another video with the actual channel schedule and it will be the channel trailer also, so keep an eye out for that one. But today, we're talking about Patrick Zuskens? Zuskens? I don't know. Perfume, the story of a murderer. This was recommended to me by several people, but nobody as much as a longtime viewer, Ivan. So, hello Ivan. Say hello down there in the comments section. He said you have to read this bookie. You have to. It's like nothing else out there, nothing else I've read. So, of course, me being a fan of original content, I went and searched it out. And I got to say, Ivan's correct. I've never read anything like this. There is a heavy theme of smell, of course. This is the story of Grenouille. I want to say is his name. I'm just basing that on the spelling of Ratatouille and the spelling of his name, which is G-R-E-N-O-U-I-L-L-E. I'm thinking that's OUI there at the end. I might be wrong. But Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is he has an extremely honed and perfected sense of smell. He was born with it. But he has no smell of his own. Throughout the entire book, I was wondering how and why all this was going to come into play. I had no idea. I just thought it was a unique twist on the serial killer genre kind of deal. And it's a period piece also. I think it's 1800s. I can't remember exactly when it is. But it's older. We're talking Kings and all that stuff. But the story here drags. It drags and it drags. And I almost quit it in the last 20 pages, but the last 50. What happened was I set this on my nightstand. It's actually my bookshelf. I set it on my bookshelf, which is right next to the bed. And I set it there and I forgot I was reading it while I was reading other books. And I looked over and I said, what's that orange-ish book sitting there? So I pulled it off. I was like, oh yeah, I was reading this. And I was only 50 pages from the end. I picked it up and I read 30 pages. And I was like, I think I'm just going to call this quits. But I didn't have anything else to do. So I settled in for the last 20 pages. I'm glad I did. Because the entirety of the book, first off, it's not written in a way that I prefer. It's more of an antiquated style. I think it was written in 2000 or close to that. Oh, I'm sorry. 1986. I was wrong. But it's still more recent than I thought it was. I thought maybe it was like 20s or 30s. That's how it's written. In fact, it could have been written in the 18th century for the way it's written. But so it's not my preferred way. It's not my preferred style of reading. But then those last 20 pages hit and they blew me away. Everything, all the boring stuff that I read in here all comes into play to fit together perfectly here at the last 20 pages. Now one of the biggest, I don't know that it was an issue. I don't think it was an issue. In fact, I think it was something that I quite enjoyed. The main character here is the villain. You don't have a main character throughout the book that is an antagonist. Sorry, a protagonist. You only have the antagonist that is throughout the entire book. People come and go out of this guy's life, but mostly you're dealing with the killer. I thought that was rather unique. Really the only reason why I am not giving this 5 stars is because of all the stuff that came before those last 20 pages. Because I didn't like any of it. Now is it needed? Yes, it is needed. Which is why I'm giving it 4 stars. And you can read a better, more succinct review of this if you prefer to read it. I'll leave the link down there. I already have it up on Goodreads. But thank you Ivan for recommending this. I will say, I don't think anybody will see the last 20 pages of this book coming. It knocked me for a loop. And especially the very last scene of the book is some of the gnarliest content I have ever read. It is not up there with the most disturbing. But it's definitely, I was like, wow, that he went there. And I'm not even talking about the scene before that. I'm talking about the very last scene of the book. So can I recommend this? I don't know. If you like period pieces, historical fiction that is written in that time frame, like the 18th century in that style, you might enjoy it. I don't know. But honestly, the only reason I enjoyed this book was for the last 20 pages. So again, thank you Ivan for recommending this. Definitely, I don't regret reading it. And it's definitely going to stay with me for the rest of my life. So until next time, I have an E, you and you. This has been another book review. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye!