Colourless caricatures rather than characters drift arbitrarily through the plot, giving you no indication who matters. Clumsily written action sequences could have come from a primary schooler. Humour is elbowed in where there's no place for it, sobriety where it's supposed to be an adventure.

While it's perfect for the sensual nature of poetry, it does nothing to advance a narrative. He obviously knows his way around the chemistry of 18th century perfume manufacture, but if you're that keen, Wikipedia's quicker.

Countless writers have thoroughly dissected the dangers of instant gratification of everything from sexual desire to self-expression on the human condition. Siegel goes one further, asserting that our whole lives become a 24/7 economic transaction as we drift through the digital world producing and consuming.