Easily my favorite book about perfume and the love thereof. Alyssa is a beautiful writer and her moving, descriptive prose brought me to tears more than once. A must read for anyone who loves scent. ( )

Right now I am in the middle of an indie perfume oils obsession (Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, Possets, Arcana, etc) so I am reading this at exactly the right time. Harad is writing about exactly my position, the position of going on forums and blogs and asking people to trade perfumes and paying for decants. and then you start spending way, waaaaaay too much money on "juice" and attempt, perhaps badly, to describe scent notes and get other people into perfume. All the perfume parts of this book were like, "YESSSSSS that is it exactly." The wedding parts were "Ehhhhh, I have no idea. I must be the unlikeliest bride because I have no desire to become one, at least not like this" and not like, fake No Desire because it would hurt my feminist cool (like what it seems Harad is concerned about), like I seriously have no desire for a wedding. Still enjoyed spending time with her, even though I skimmed the wedding parts. She writes pretty well. She seems mostly chill.

Mostly chill because Harad is recovering from years' worth of, uhhh... what I would call a sort of asceticism inspired by academia and liberal ideals (how much the asceticism is actually in service of creating beneficial social change, IDK. Seems like it was mostly a spiritual, as in being ascetic made her feel like a good, ethical person, or a socially performative thing). Lots of scenes basically described as "My educated liberal social circle of Austinites give me the side-eye when I tell them I love perfume, like I'm secretly some ditz from Dallas." I remember specifically one scene where a friend she was speaking to was all like, "I don't want to be the kind of woman who wears perfume," like OMG, judgeeeeeeey. So that's the story of the title. Coming to My Senses = How I Began to Recognize the Judgemental Killjoy Within Myself and Others and Stopped Being So Sanctimonious. I don't know if she is totally there yet. sometimes there is a tinge of, "oh, those pretty girls in middle school were so mean and superficial!" and she still sounds like the girl making a poster of the school's Cool Hierarchy which is something she says she actually did OMG. I mean who's the mean girl in that situation i don't think she realizes it was kinda her ( )

Picked this up thinking it was more of an exploration of the history of perfume with some personal anecdotes, but it was primarily a memoir, specifically of Alyssa Harad's descent into the world of perfume fans coinciding with her wedding preparations. I could identify with some of the 'secret hobby' feelings since I've been dipping my toe into the nail polish world, and the writing was well done. Not a book if you're looking for a treatise on perfume, but for a personal exploration (a dead tree edition of a blog at times), a good read. ( )

Oh dear. Well, Harad seems like a lovely person and very kind. I do like her very much after reading her book. And she is an excellent writer, fluent, quick-witted, self-deprecating and able to carry any reader along. It pains me to say, therefore, that I can't really recommend this book to very many people.

I hate to be harsh to her, but I just don't understand the payoff, if one values ones time, of reading about a lovely person with a resolutely ordinary life, just because in the space of a year she became interested in wearing perfume and had to plan her wedding. It's even hard to recommend this to people interested in perfume, because for some reason she refuses to name most of the perfumes she writes about. So I guess the point, to her, is to write about her journey rather than to educate or elucidate others. But that's called a diary, and it's of interest to third parties mainly if they know the person or want illumination into the person's existing body of work. Also, most people are candid in their diaries. I just think we as readers can and should demand more from books published by a big house. Unfortunately, for me, this book is too little. ( )

I loved the smells conjured by this book. I really enjoyed Harad's evocative prose, and I think this memoir shone for all the perfumery parts. I didn't love the wedding parts quite so much, but even that was fun to read. I found the part about her mother's perfume, near the end of the book, to be almost unbearably poignant and so moving. I wished she would have called out more of the perfumes she described by name. Recommended, if you love perfume. ( )