Jessie Burton

The Miniaturist: A Novel

Jazelle H

A compelling world to step into, for the chance to step out of your own.

It took me quite a while to get into this book, though I never felt totally absorbed or invested in the characters, towards the end I found a real beauty in the book - in the relationships mostly. Interesting, a book I might come back to in a few years as I’m not sure I uncovered a lot of its subtlety.

Laura Gill

Lynette Pedersen

I had really high hopes for this book since the BBC has picked it up for a series. However, it's slow, boring, and a serious downer. Absolutely nothing good happens to anyone or anything in this book, and a whole lot of nothing at all happens for the first 2/3 of the story. With hardly any real details about anything, we get stark, drawn-out details about things that seem like a deliberate attempt at making the reader uncomfortable. We never get any answers, and, by the end, the book inspires you to deeply dislike an entire city. Perhaps the point was to highlight the unfairness of heavy-handed religion and social beliefs that culminate in homophobia and racism? If that's the case, then it's a poorly articulated lesson about something we already know.

Prashanth Srivatsa

Set in late seventeenth century Amsterdam, amid barge-soaked canals and abject racism, the Miniaturist tells the story of a village girl in the city, whose marriage with a rich merchant brings all sort of problems. Written beautifully, aside from being a poignant observation on the power of money, of the pressures of marriage and of the customs that constrict society now as then, it is also a gentle reminder as to why we fell in love with reading in the first place. One for the collection, this..

Wonko the Sane

I really did enjoy this book and thought the author is very talented as a writer and a storyteller (not always the same thing.) 

The reason a star has been knocked off is that I felt the central “mystery” of the miniaturist was sort of unnecessary in the end and that part of the story felt more like a publishing/marketing gimmick than anything else. It’s probably easier to sell a story about a mysterious semi-prophetic possibly supernatural miniaturist sending unsolicited cryptic warnings in doll form than one about the secrets and lies of a one family in the oppressive culture of 17th century Amsterdam. 

Nonetheless, an impressive debut, and I look forward to seeing how the author continues the story in the sequel due to be published this year.

Sonja H

Was für ein wundervolles Buch! Sehr schöner Schreibstil, eine schöne, realistische Geschichte mit einigen Geheimnissen, tolle Charaktere, die im Laufe der Story über sich selbst hinauswachsen - absolut emepfehlenswert! Unbedingt lesen!

Sydney Tipton

Not usually into novels like this but my jaw DROPPED so often so it was cool

Ley Stanton

I had my issues with some of the characters, it made it more difficult for me to enjoy the story. I appreciated Nella as a main character. She was strong through every struggle, despite the fact that no one really expected her to be. This was such a unique tale. I wish there was more, perhaps a novella about the Miniaturist so we know more of their story. I think there was so much more that could have been delved into in this tale. So many stones left un-turned.

Natalia Hernandez

3.5
Reseña en español en mi blog: https://natified.com/2018/07/10/2018-...

Nella is 17 years old and has just arrived in Amsterdam to live with her new husband, a merchant who is very important in the city. He lives with his sister and their servants; he welcomes his wife with a gift: a miniature of the house they live in, which will soon become the center of a mystery Nella needs to solve. 

Set in the XVI century, a century I'm not particularly fond of, I was immedietly interested by the miniature in the back cover, this glorified doll house which is the real protagonist in a story about a family with many, many secrets and not a lot of communication. You can blame the times, I blame the people. Nella goes into the story as ignorant as the reader, not knowing this man she married, not knowing her sister-in-law, not knowing how this world works and trying very hard to find that out, all alone. She doesn't really have friends or family around, no one to talk to about what she sees and discovers, but she's not lonely, she tries hard to fit in, she asks questions. 

It took me a while to get into the book, to be honest, although I didn't find any part of it boring or slow. If I were to edit something out, I really could not point out one section that wasn't necesary to the story. It's a long book but it doesn't feel like it drags, which I really appreciate. I think from the climax going forward it's a much easier read.

Gabriella Parker

This book is was really hard to put down. At some point of the story, I didn’t really understood Marin’s personality and all. I really liked the dynamic between Johannes and Nella though. Especially how seriously he treats her despite this being set in 17th century Amsterdam. I had come to love Marin’s character. Both Johannes and Marin’s death was devastating but I was glad that Otto came back to be reunited with Thea.

Gemma Reilly

I found this book quite dull to be honest, I just couldn't get through it.

Sarah Vaughan

While it did hold my interest until the very end, this book was just okay for me. I'm not sure if the identity of Thea's father was supposed to be a plot twist, but I had already predicted it by the tenth page. I enjoyed the descriptions of 17th century Amsterdam, and I found the author's writing style very elaborate and enjoyable without being pretentious. I still have so many unanswered questions about "the miniaturist." I wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Did the author intend for readers to be left empty-handed to ask why or did she just forget to tie up loose ends? There are characters who play important roles throughout the entirety of the book who just seem to disappear at the end. Their fates are unknown, which is a little confusing.

Julija M

4,5⭐️
brilliant! I found myself caring for the characters immensely and reading the prologue again in context, after finishing the book, made it so much better. I just wish I got to know why exactly did the miniaturist target them and a little more about her except just the small bit regarding her, near the end of the book.

Rebecka S.

Lite seg i början. Bra på mitten men ihophafsad på slutet

Charlotte Rayfield

These characters felt so real and wonderful and flawed. I never wanted it to end.

Judy McClure

Loved the historical detail and the character development.

Olivera Mitić

I'm not sure if I have much to say about this. It wasn't what I was expecting and it didn't sit well with me for some reason. I found it to be a bit too dark and kind of uncomfortable to read at times. 


 I'm counting this for the Around the World in 80 Books challenge as a book set in the Netherlands.

Alexandra Gillgrass

This book was so so brilliant. While at first was a little intimidated by the size, you really do find yourself speeding through it, it's that good. 

The writing style is exquisite and I loved the storyline. The imagery was absolutely beautiful and I loved how it was set in Amsterdam in the 1600s making it all the more interesting!

I can see why it took four years to write as it is so detailed and intricately written that it isn't short of a magical masterpiece. 

This book really succeeds in making you escape from the real word, you feel like you're really there, really being transported. 

An absolute masterpiece.

Flore Detry

I gave it 3 stars because it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. 2 stars however seems too cruel. I was excited to keep on reading, because I was curious to find out how it ends. But it somehow left me unsatisfied. I don’t really know what the point of it all was. Of course, that can just simply be the Burton’s style. It just didn’t satisfy me. I just wanted to find out more about the miniaturist. One thing I disliked, was the dialogues and interactions between the caracters. They seemed so unnatural, even for the 17th century and it was hard to follow who was saying what. Furthermore, Nella’s reactions to simple things were often overly dramatic.

Daryl Houston

This was a fine read, and I think the author has talent, but I find this sort of vaguely historical fiction a little frustrating because the point seems to be not the telling of a rich story based in the particular period but rather the telling of a story with the period bits as a sort of hook or window dressing. So then when I begin to suspect that I'm reading anachronisms or when the liberties taken with the history and the culture and the language seem to step sufficiently far out of bounds that even this period layman raises an eyebrow, I begin to wonder why the author chose to write in this period with so little faithfulness to it. 

To be clear: I'm no scholar of 17th-century Amsterdam history and culture. Maybe everything told here is true to life of the period (though the acknowledgements suggest perhaps the author knows this not to be the case). But it did ring pretty false to me. And that, for a period book, seems a cardinal sin. I did enjoy it, but I would have enjoyed it a great deal more if it had felt more authentic and less, in the end, like a gimmick. I might have enjoyed the story's backbone told in a different period more accessible or familiar to the author. For a book that seems more true to the history (and one that is much more beautiful), I'll take Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet.

Elad Schulman

WOW.

This book was so beautifully written, and actually had a pretty depressing end. I wish I had more time to read it, because then I probably would have been more emotionally invested in the characters, but everything about this book was so beautiful!

The Miniaturist: A Novel

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