Scent of Darkness

I really wanted to like this more than I did. I was told to read this book by someone that has very similar book taste to my own and so I thought I would love it. I think this was just a bit weird for me. I liked the idea behind the story but not really the story itself. Fragrance + a grandmother who is a master of scent = super special scent that can change your life. Neat! Well...maybe not to so neat.

I think one of my main problems was that I didn't really like the main character. Eva was just kind of lame. She was ok but I didn't really root for her. She got herself into these messes and then seemed so blah. I didn't care about her love life or her for that matter. I did like the young boy that kept hanging around her and wanted to help her. I would read his story.

The love was lame. It didn't feel real or passionate. It just existed and you were expected to care about it but I didn't care at all. Both her potential love interests are lame and not worth the time she was putting into them. She didn't really know them and the way she met her first love interest was just weird. "Hey, I'm going to go clean out my dead grandmother's house! *sees boy* What are you doing here?" "Studying....sorry....it's just quiet in here. I liked you grandmother. Everyone did." What the hell? Could she not have thought of something less weird that a med student studying in a dead ladies house?

The scent. I understand that she doesn't know what is happening or how much to read into feelings of attraction towards her but she wanted to get caught up in a disaster because she gets herself in a big ol' mess and then whines about it. C'mon Eva, you knew what was going to happen and you let it happen anyway.

It also pissed me off that she just let's the artist use her. I know I said she wanted to get in those sticky situations but really. She just lets him get by being a flipping crazy person when really she should have kicked his ass and said leave me alone. I get it, the scent drove him crazy and he would do anything to get it. Even if it meant killing her to put her blood in his paint. Um...ew. I want that to be cool! It's gross and interesting and I want to like that but my disdain towards the characters is preventing me from liking that.

I say if you're really curious give it a whirl but you really could just as well skip this one. At least it's only 240 pages? I rated this 3 stars on goodreads but would actually give it 2.5. It was creative and I thought it really felt like dark magic and the scent thing was cool. I also believed the atmosphere of New Orleans. This was written well and I would try another book by this author.