Book Review: 'The Miniaturist' by Jessie Burton

I feel as though all my posts are book reviews at the minute. That's partly because I have been spending quite a lot of time reading, and partly because, in the style of Draft One posts, book reviews are quite easy to churn out in a way that other posts aren't because they take less time to compile together. However, while I definitely do have other posts in the pipeline, while I'm working full time and currently visiting my Grand and therefore only have my phone to work with, your stuck with book reviews for now!

I finished this book last week, and it took me about a fortnight as it's quite long, but I also started it right at the end of my holiday so I was reading the odd chapter here and there between work really. I'd heard of it from a number of different people and places and, in fact, when I went into Waterstones and bought my copy, the kady at the till said that I must be one of the very few people she knows you hadn't already read it, due to its extreme popularity a couple of years ago!

Brief Summary: Nella moves to Amsterdam to live with her new husband, Johannes, in a marriage that had been organise as a matter of convinience. Also in the house lives the master's 2 servants, 2 dogs, and unmarried sister Marin. Seemingly completely uninterested in her himself, Johannes buys Nella a miniature replica of their house in the hope that furnishing it will keep her occupied. But, as Nella begins to order furniture for her gift, strange things begin to happen, and as Nella grows closer to her new family, the authorities in Amsterdam have ideas that differ greatly from a happily ever after.

I really enjoyed Burton's writing style as it was suitably descriptive but not boring. I found myself engaged enough in the book that I wanted to keep picking it up and find out more, and so grew attatched to the characters, not so much Nella, but certainly some of the others.

I did find this book to be slow moving and thus uneccessarily long. It therefore took me a while to get into, because nothing much happens for ages.

I also failed to see a very strong connection between the overall plot and the relevancy of the miniature cabinet. As cool an idea as it was to have a cabinet creepily predict events that would occur, I didn't think enough focus was made of this, and rather that the story could have in fact worked (perhaps not as successfully!) without the Miniaturist at all!

Plot wise, I thought it was well written and not at all predictable... there were a couple of twists I definitely didn't see coming. In addition, Burton successfully avoided too much in the way of cliche or cheesiness, by keeping true to the intense and sometimes graphic nature of the scenes her characters find themselves in. For this reason, it wasn't a jolly ready, but definitely well-written.

Finally, one thing I really did love was the setting and the huge volume of research Burton had clearly done into the time period and historic elements of Amsterdam, giving the novel a very realistic feel as a piece of historic fiction.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this to people as a read unlike anything else I've read really, and have since purchased another of Burton's books 'The Muse'. However, I would say that a little patience and perseverance is necessary due to lack of immediate action. In addition, this is a book I can imaging being made into a film, and I'd certainly give that a watch! Perhaps in that form, the true mysterious intent and events would be clearer to me too!






Reading Challenge: 9/21