Jitterbug Perfume

A friend mentioned that she doesn’t enjoy reading and I responded, “Saying you don’t enjoy reading is like saying you don’t enjoy watching movies. You just haven’t found the right ones.” And then I immediately stitched that on a pillow because honestly…profound. Let’s take a moment.

If you take it a step further and say you don’t like fiction, well, you’re wrong, but you’re also not going to like Tom Robbins. He is the funkiest. His stuff is very made-up. He always has several parallel and interweaving storylines, each one with its own oddities. He’s always some combination of philosophy, feminism, wit, sexuality, and outlandishness without making me gag. I’ve talked at length about his writing style, so I won’t waste our time here. If you want examples of the kind of crazy characters he uses and a pic of Uma Thurman playing one of his lead characters, peep my review of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. If you want a detailed comparison of Robbins to Vonnegut, peep my review of Still Life with Woodpecker. If you want to see a picture of my penis bookmark, peep my review of Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas.

Robbins is just so fun. He’s like a breath of fresh air. His work is meandering and silly and it reminds you to not take everything so seriously (but also to take the important things kind of seriously, sometimes). If I was a doctor, I’d prescribe Robbins once a year. And then I’d do surgery on a grape (If you know, you know).

I gave Even Cowgirls Get the Blues a 5/5, Still Life with Woodpecker a 3/5, and Half-Asleep in Frog Pajamas a 2/5. How fitting that I give Jitterbug Perfume a 4/5. He continues to be that loveable weirdo; however, the plot gets a little helter-skelter at times due to overcrowding. 

*Robbins, Tim. Jitterbug Perfume. New York: Bantam Books, 1984. Print.