The Scent of Rain by Kristin Billerbeck promised to be a light, fun read. I chose this complimentary copy from Booksneeze just for that purpose. The plot revolves around a young perfumeologist who loses her sense of smell just after being left at the altar by her groom-to-be. After giving up her job in Paris for her would-be husband, she found herself stuck in Ohio working for a cleaning supply company. The book traces her efforts to recover from her failed romance (by finding a new one, of course), to cover up her loss of smell, and to reestablish herself as a confident, independent woman without fiancé or parents to fall back on.
I had hoped for a light, witty read. What I found were characters so one-dimensional they seemed cartoonish, dialogue and prose desperately stretched to make the scent of rain metaphor work, and turns of events so swift and unprecedented that my head spun trying to keep up. A case in point was the office temptress painted as selfish and seductive who in one logic- defying scene suddenly turns out to be misunderstood, and in fact, quite selfless. The final scene between the perfumeologist and her new man plays out exactly as it had occurred in a dream she had experienced earlier in the book though no particular relevance was given to any of the details including a clown's involvement. Sometimes light reads are a fun diversion from meatier, more intricate plot lines. Unfortunately, The Scent of Rain produced more groans than laughs.
