It’s quite common to use similes and metaphors to put a character’s experiences in context. For example:
The sky reminded Jane of…
The sound was sharp like a…
It was like her favourite song…
It was like the housekeeper from that show…
There are two purposes to these kinds of references:
1) To help the reader experience what you’re describing. If your character says that someone’s jacket smelled like coffee, the reader will smell coffee when he/she reads this. Obviously, this will fall flat if he/she has never smelled coffee before but that risk must be weighed with the ever-important #2.
2) To add depth to your characterization. This one slips me up a lot. If your character says that a sound reminds her of an out-of-tune piano, the reader assumes she’s familiar with out-of-tune pianos (and in-tune ones for that matter). The reader then concludes that the character is a musician. Excellent. Well, excellent if she is a musician. If not, what you have is probably what I find myself constantly avoiding (*cough* revising *cough*) and that is the tendency for writers to use metaphors that work in their own heads. This is why we see a lot of references to 80s culture in YA novels (because 80s culture works for the 30+something writer, not today’s teen!)
The advice here is: be careful. Every time you use a simile or metaphor in your writing, make sure it is the right one for both your audience and your character.