Astrid Dahl is a perfume collector who assiduously catalogues the scent of everything in her world. She’s a writer, and by her own account she’s toxic in any relationship. She’s not wrong about that. She’s so self-destructive that I didn’t want to like her. I really didn’t. But I loved her.

Her bravado wins me over, in spite of the drugs, the self-deceit, the elaborate posing, the destructiveness. She’s bright, full of curiosity, and most of the time full of a “magic cocktail” (alcohol, sativa, Adderall, and cigarettes) that masks her insecurities. She names it after a writer whose deceit and darkness and skill she admires: “On the Patricia Highsmith, I could do anything. I published three books, optioned two.”

This character embodies the kind of personality, the kind of femininity, that she herself says she’s drawn to: “..the type of femininity I’ve always been attracted to: fevered verbosity.” It makes her story rich, verbally exciting, a thrill ride for the ages.

Edgy and brash, she’s the ultimate unreliable narrator – both unreliable and totally aware of her own unreliability. Come for the drama, the breathtaking bravado, the deception and self-deception, and stay for the biting commentary, the arrows that hit center. This novel is filled with little observations that turn into a barely self-aware comment, and then BOOM, a comment that feels so sudden and revelatory, so unexpectedly self-revelatory and smart, that I often shouted “Yes!” as I was reading.

On her friend Zev: “We went to college together; my fag hag years, when I was afraid to be near anyone I wanted to fuck or who wanted to fuck me. Fine, I guess I’m still like that a bit. Fear is desire’s cousin.”

On her lack of confidence: “People with healthy egos don’t become writers; they become engineers.”

On finding her new home has a yard shared with the neighbor, she panics. “’Shared yard?’ I say. ‘Shared with whom?’ I really don’t like to share property, or anything else. I’ve always lived alone, always preferred to live in a shitty studio than with roommates. I don’t like witnesses.”
Her character is complex and interesting. For example, she likes Alice Coltrane. That could send you off on a deep dive checking out who Alice Coltrane is and why Astrid might like her music – and it’s a journey you’ll be glad for. The things and people (authors, musicians) this character really likes make up a smart and beguiling world. The depth of her interests promises something about her, and convinces me she’s worth it.

She’s a lesbian, but because she’s more comfortable with gay men than with gay women – and she knows some of this is just her own insecurity – she’s able to observe both those worlds with a sharp accuracy. She observes that “lesbians make everyone uncomfortable.”
“With gay men, it’s completely different. The sex act is unsettling to people, has been criminalized at various points throughout history, but their partnering is championed, met with parades and rainbow flags and pride. With lesbians, it’s the opposite. The sex act is eroticized, drives the entire porn industry (so I’ve heard!) but our partnering is unnerving to people.”

She scrutinizes her own guilt at enjoying gay male culture – “I’ve always felt close to gay male culture – uppers and camp and Azealia Banks. Like Camille Paglia said: ‘When I meet gay men anywhere in the world, there is a spontaneity and a spirit of fun and mischief that lesbians seem incapable of.’ I suppose in aligning myself with gay men, I was participating in a subconscious form of lesbian erasure.”
Astrid is in her 30s now, a little past the rush and bloom and energy of being 20-something, far enough past that she sees how her image has changed, against her will:

“There was a point at which my politics matched the zeitgeist, and maybe this is just part of aging, but lately my politics feel unfashionable. When I was twenty-eight and published my first book, being a lesbian novelist writing lesbian novels gave me edge and political relevance. Now, the publishing world simply sees me as white and cis and straight-passing, which I am, and was therefore probably unfairly granted political relevance to begin with.”

Ouch. But so true. So very true.

This book will appeal primarily to a lesbian audience, particularly one that knows the appeal of a past era’s lesbian pulp novels – seedy, smart, and thrilling. I hope that it will also make it onto the bookshelves of young women, even cis straight women, because all of its smartness and insecurities are the same ones I see in many of them. When someone comments to Astrid that she is strange, she acknowledges to herself how strange she really is, but “the comment still hurts, I suppose because I’m human. Wanting to be liked is the ickiest sensation.”

Young women everywhere – this book understands you. It has your back.

Thanks to #netgalley and #SimonBooks for the ARC.

This was a messy book. In the best way possible. It is such an interestkng take on lesbian pulp. I relate so much to Astrid in mannerisms, relating to the world around her, the way she deals with difficult situations (minus the whole Patricia Highsmith). She is chaotic and unapologetic while trying to do better. Astrid is chaotic and self destructive, but trying to figure herself out.

This is my 3rd Anna Dorn book, having previously purchased and read Exalted and Vagablonde. She has such an interesting and specific skill of writing the absolute descent into madness through a lost young woman's eyes. I myself am a New York City lesbian who is arts community-adjacent, so reading about the lesbian LA arts community? It felt salacious and delicious, especially through Astrid's sharp POV. I loved and hated all of the characters, but I just loved the book.

"Perfume and Pain" captivated me from start to finish, serving as a complex and delightful homage to Lesbian pulp novels of the past.
Narrated by the cynical and “lightly canceled” lesbian writer, Astrid Dahl, the book offers a slice of her turbulent life in Los Angeles. From her involvement with the Sapphic Scribes, a writers group she founded in college, to her fixation on fellow member, Ivy, and their toxic relationship, Astrid's narrative is filled with intrigue. She has a strained relationship with her editor, her family is emotionally distant and disappointed in her career choices, she doesn’t pay attention to the details of her friend’s lives, she reluctantly engages in a friendship with her new neighbor, Penelope, and agrees to let actress Kat Gold shadow her for a role in an adaptation of one of her earlier novels. All of these relationships add drama and complexity to the mix.

Astrid's voice, characterized by her sardonic inner dialogue and her reliance on "The Patricia Highsmith" (a mix of adderall, alcohol, and chain smoked cigarettes), for writing inspiration, paints a kinetic, funny, yet fragmented picture of her world. She sometimes enters into a situation high on a concoction of drugs, then blacks out and comes-to in a different place or scene. She’s often hyper-critical of everything around her, but Astrid's tendency to verbally "punch down" results in Astrid hitting herself, over and over again. This self-destructive streak, coupled with her observations of the sometimes mutually unhinged behavior of those around her, makes for a compelling character study. "Perfume and Pain" skillfully navigates themes of dissociation and obsession, showing us that self-absorption isn't always synonymous with self-awareness.

What struck me most about the book was its ability to balance serious conflicts with humor. The characters remain deeply flawed yet likable, and I found myself rooting for each of them- except for the random man wearing a “Bottoms for Hillary” t-shirt that spits on Astrid, and Ivy.

"Perfume and Pain" is a captivating read that offers both depth and entertainment. I highly recommend it to anyone seeking a thought-provoking and humorous exploration of human nature, some steamy lesbian sex, and maybe a touch of hard-earned character growth at the end of the rainbow.

I immensely enjoyed this work. Astrid is, an at times, likable character whose Patricia Highsmith drug binges, dating antics, and “hot takes” are amusing but you want to shake the character as she just cannot seem to get out of her own way.

Midway through the book, I put my iPad down and explained to my wife, “this book is so gay!” And it is VERY gay …and I loved it - loved every last kardashian, housewives, Rachel weisz, and carol reference.

I particularly enjoyed the commentary on the lesbian/sappho origins and the glamour and beauty and femininity that women who love women evoked at the time, contrasted with the hypermasculine stereotypes that dominate lesbian culture today.

If you have ever dated a clingy and a bit off kilter ex who texts you 32 times in a row, this book might be for you. If you like messy lesbian LA culture, this book might be for you. If you know who Patricia Highsmith is and obsess over Rachel Weiss’s bone structure, again, this book may be for you.


(A fun read! I have a book crush on Penelope.)

Thank you to the publisher, Simon & Schuster, and Netgalley for providing me with an early copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review.

Really liked this book, it was a pretty quick read. Very messy, very gay, very bad choices. Would recommend if you like any of the above.

So, lesbian pulp isn’t a genre I’m particularly familiar with, but Perfume and Pain was definitely a nice way to put my foot in the door. Anna Dorn paints quite a picture about writer Astrid Dahl who is a very provocative, problematic, and self-sabotaging lesbian who ultimately just wants to be successful and loved without being under the influence of her substance filled cocktail known as the “Patricia Highsmith.” The female supporting characters in Astrid’s world are vividly drawn while the male characters are a bit lacking, but this is very appropriate. She’s not really a sympathetic protagonist but boy does she take you on a ride and get you to think about aspects of the lesbian world (she would be upset if I said queer.) It’s a book I won’t be forgetting any time soon.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for kindly providing this arc in exchange for my honest review.

4.5*

This book is immediately being added to my list of essential lesbian reads 

I was excited to read this one because Anna Dorn’s books kept floating around my TBR, but I never picked one up until now. After reading this, I think she has gained a fan. I knew I was going to like this as soon as I read the synopsis, and was only even more convinced when in the first few pages my favorite Goodreads list “She’s Not Feeling Good At All” was mentioned by name, and this rightfully earns a spot on said list. 

At first I struggled with how the characters speak. If you are not familiar with internet culture and slang, you might feel like you are reading a completely different language when reading this book as everyone speaks with a pronounced “Gen Z” twang. As I am (unfortunately) chronically online, it was a quick adjustment for me, but I can see how this could be alienating for others.

I particularly loved Astrid. Reading about her and all her pitfalls made me realize I have never had a unique experience in my life. Sometimes the protagonists within the books listed on the “She’s Not Feeling Good At All” list struggle with making me care about them because they are not complex and only exist to be awful. However, while it is very clear that Astrid is rough around the edges, she is so deeply relatable that it made me desperate to keep reading as I felt as if her plight was my own. I mean I too have lied to my therapist and put too much faith in crystals and astrology, so who am I to judge?

Overall, I loved how messy this was and I can’t wait to read more by Anna Dorn! 

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the eARC!

(3.5 stars)

Astrid is a writer living in LA, currently in a writing slump. Forced to move into a new bungalow, she's annoyed that her neighbor is an unfriendly older lesbian. She has a crush on Ivy from her Zoom writers' group, and they meet and fall for each other in an alcohol and Adderall haze. (Most of this book was about blacking out from different substances). Soon Ivy becomes a rollercoaster of a relationship, dragging Astrid through all the ups and downs. This book felt a lot like The L Word on amphetamines and dealing with addiction. I wish more of the book was about Astrid's redemption story and less of the struggles and drama. I was also surprised there wasn't more steam in this since it's a book about lesbian relationships.

I really enjoyed this book. Messy, queer, and weird are three of my favorite adjectives to describe books, and I could 100% use all three for this book in different ways. (I would certainly say lesbian and not queer!!) You know it's a good book when you go immediately look up an author's backlist to seek out more content.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.

Perfume & Pain gave me anxiety in the best way. This book is unhinged and the main character is what I imagine what a sapphic version of Ottessa Moshfegh’s lead characters would look like. It’s almost too relatable if you’re a queer woman. Imagine The L Word but if you made Jenny and Shane into one character with only their worst qualities and made them the focal point of of the chaos.

Dorn’s writing is great and this fast paced book is so entertaining. Definitely recommend.

Objectively, this is compelling enough as a novel… for me, though… so many things didn’t hit.

I don’t want to bash the book. I know it will be loved by many, and I can see why. This is lesbian pulpy goodness. It gets under your skin! But, I didn’t like the mc. It was a chore to get into her headspace.

The relationships and the encounters she has are either just terrible luck or a type she has, which she needs to reformat what that looks like because it does her ZERO favors… Penelope though, she is this older woman who burrows under her surface.

I enjoyed the relationship progression with the mc and her brother. There were really silly parts in this book and some really wild parts. Ultimately, the mc’s darker personality was daunting to me.

Overall I need to give this book credit because it did keep me reading until the very end, so it was entertaining enough. It was pretty trainwreck-y, so you can’t help but see what happens next. I thought that it fell a little flat in the end.

Obsessed with the main character. Loved the need to think in this book and how it wasn't overwhelming as some similar books in this vein are.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster* for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I loved every second of this!! Astrid is the messiest character I’ve met in a long time. She is a tornado of booze, drugs, sex, and transactional relationships that leaves a path of destruction 100 miles wide in her wake. And yet, you can’t help but root for her the whole novel and want to see her do better and make better choices.

Dorn’s prose is brash, unflinching, honest, and compulsively readable. At times, it feels like you’re reading someone’s journal or secret Tumblr account. I also got major Ava from ‘Hacks’ vibes (just less funny) from Astrid, which I enjoyed. I liked how Dorn wrote the side characters and how the reader gets to watch their relationships to Astrid evolve over the course of the novel.

There was one point towards the middle of the novel where Astrid’s cyclical shenanigans got a bit old for me, but that feeling quickly went away as the story progressed.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel and will be reading the rest of Anna Dorm’s catalogue immediately!! Perfume and Pain is for anyone who likes to watch mess and drama from a safe distance, until you inevitably get swept up in it in some way.

“Being a writer means being rejected constantly, and that's probably why I like it. Because I'm a masochist. It's probably why I date women too. Hurts so good!”

I went back and forth between loving and disliking this one. It’s funny and deeply sapphic, but it’s also really white and sometimes hard to draw the line between what’s satire and what’s out of touch. I get we need imperfect, flawed main characters etc, but I vote that we make them less annoying!!

I feel like it dragged in the middle and Kate’s character + anything to do with the internet always made me cringe. Also why was Astrid being Swedish so central to her inner monologue??

Unfortunately I did love the lesbian melodrama of it all!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with a digital ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review!

This was such a wild and fun ride. Perfume and Pain is a satirical, literary fiction novel about obsession and lesbian culture in LA. Astrid is a 35-year-old novelist who is sort of getting canceled after a problematic remark she made during an interview. She is trying to stop using drugs and alcohol to get healthy and clean up her image. She has one other obsession she can't seem to overcome, though - women. The story follows her as she dates a walking red flag, Ivy, while bickering with her attractive, older neighbor, Penelope, all the while getting to know a celebrity, Kat Gold, who is adapting one of Astrid's novels into a television show. Astrid is intelligent and witty, but also doesn't have much of a filter on her (often controversial) viewpoints. When you add all of this together, what results is a hilarious story that is just as messy as it is entertaining.

I had so much fun reading this! I think this is a novel that many sapphic millennials will appreciate. You do need to go into it expecting a chaotic, cringey adventure though. Astrid comes from a privileged background, and while she does face some difficult challenges, she also is continuously making bad choices (and is very self-aware of her decisions). She also has some bad takes at times. So, she's definitely the type of main character that you love to hate. Reading this book is like listening to your most unhinged friend tell you all of their wild stories. It's so amusing, but it may not be for everyone. I found myself immediately drawn into Astrid's world and waiting to see what would happen next (almost like watching reality TV), but others may find her to be too much.

Anna Dorn captures queer culture wonderfully. My favorite part of reading this novel was watching Astrid's interactions with all of her friends and love interests. The characters come to life beautifully. I adored all of Astrid's friends - Zev, Otto, and Sophie are equally delightful. Readers are a bit limited, because Astrid is so self-centered that she doesn't tell us too much information about her friends, but the side characters are still written so well that you can pick up on their traits throughout the scenes in which they're present. I also found both love interests intriguing in different ways. Penelope is mysterious and captivating, while Ivy is fascinating because you have no clue what outrageous thing she'll do next. I thought the toxicities in each of their relationships with Astrid were realistic, and I just had to know how it was all going to shake out. Astrid herself is unlikable, but she slowly becomes more sympathetic throughout the book. Even though I wasn't always rooting for her, I was so entertained by her story that I didn't mind being in her head for the entire novel. Anna Dorn wrote such an effective morally grey, unreliable main character.

The writing is sharp and witty - some lines made me chuckle aloud, while others stopped me in my tracks because of how astute Astrid's observations were. I loved all of the references to queer media. I'm right in between the millennial and Gen Z generations, so I didn't understand all of the references, but the ones I did get were fantastic. This book is a love letter to lesbian pulp fiction. I haven't read much of that genre, but now I'm eager to pick up a couple of the books referenced throughout this novel. I also really enjoyed the details about various perfumes, as well as the commentary on Hollywood and the publishing industry. The author did a fantastic job of picking out a handful of themes for her novel and then giving them each a good amount of time and attention.

I also appreciated the pacing. It's very quick, with different characters coming and going and various conflicts arising at a rapid pace. I read this book in a few sittings, and the pages flew by. When I reached the end, it didn't feel like I had just read 350 pages; I wanted 200 more!

While I truly enjoyed Perfume and Pain, I do have two critiques. First, it was sometimes hard to distinguish what was satire from what was an actual problematic opinion that Astrid had. I don't mind reading about characters with opinions I disagree with, and this book focuses a lot on cancel culture, so it makes sense that Astrid is controversial. However, Astrid is rarely challenged enough on her problematic viewpoints - particularly if those viewpoints are not present for the sake of being satirical. She evolves some throughout the novel, but it would have been good to see her learn more about why people were offended by her words so that she could have grown to be more understanding (maybe her interactions with Kat Gold and her production team could have been expanded more to touch on this). Additionally, while I love the fast pacing, the ending wraps up a little too quickly. I like how it ends, but it felt like there could have been more chapters about what happened between the 80% mark and the very end of the novel. Astrid suddenly undergoes a lot of character development, but I would have liked to learn more about her thoughts and struggles as she made such big life changes.

Overall, this is a deliciously thrilling and funny novel! I definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a messy read about lesbian obsessions in LA. However, if you are looking for a serious literary fiction novel with a lot of emotional growth or if you really hate unlikable main characters, you may not find this book as fun as I did. I haven't read anything else by Anna Dorn before, but I'm going to go add her other novels to my to-read list now.

4 out of 5 stars.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

This is like a version of The L Word meets lesbian Bojack Horseman that seems vaguely autobiographical (I have not read the author's other books so maybe, maybe not). I appreciate a messy, unlikeable protagonist and Astrid is that and more (narcissistic, dense, an unreliable narrator). She's fleshed out enough that it's easy to hate her but then see yourself in her too. She reminded me so much of my ex at times that I wanted to throw this book across the room 🥴

I loved how unapologetic lesbian this book is. It's a bit cringey in moments - the first 100 pages or so are hard to get into - but it does ramp up. Living in the sapphic messiness was a fun ride. I do wish that the supporting characters were a bit more fleshed out though.

How I love an unlikeable main character, and Astrid is a very unique and self-aware unlikeable MC. Some of her opinions even made me uncomfortable, which I didn't think was possible in a book about a queer (sorry, lesbian) writer who lives in LA. This book started out unhinged and funny and anxiety-inducing and ended up somewhere else entirely, as all the best books should. I feel so lucky to have gotten an ARC of this and can't believe it was my introduction to Anna Dorn! Can't wait to devour her other books like I did this one.

Sharp and character-driven, PERFUME AND PAIN tells the story of Astrid, a controversial Los Angeles author who's trying to revive her career after being "canceled," taking readers through her misadventures in life and love, with a heavy dose of self-sabotage along the way. Astrid is chaos personified, often unlikable, sometimes unreliable, but to me, that just made her all the more fun to read about! I wanted to keep following her journey, and practically flew through the book, I was that hooked. Her character arc is so well-done, and the overall pacing is great, save for, maybe, the ending, which I did feel like was a little bit rushed. I wasn't super familiar with lesbian pulp fiction or Anna Dorn's work before picking up this book, but PERFUME AND PAIN was definitely an entertaining introduction to both! Dorn's writing is smart and just compulsively readable. I'd recommend her latest for fans of literary fiction with messy, complex characters and plenty of fun pop culture references to spot. Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC.