The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

from goodreads

2 stars

I know that you can't judge a book by its cover. Though, it would make choosing books a lot easier. The prettier the cover the better the book and vice versa. Nothing is worse than getting a book that you think will be awesome and then having it totally tank. While I don't use the covers as my sole means of choosing my books I will say that sometimes they do play a substantial role. There have been quite a few books that I hadn't planned on reading this year but I picked up or put on hold purely because of the cover. For the most part I haven't been disappointed.

Covers play such an important role in the seduction of reading. The people who design covers truly are artists. Some covers are so beautiful and intricate it can truly take your breath away. Others not really. I guess as long as they engage the part of your brain that thinks "hey, I wonder what that book is about?" then it has done its job.

Synopsis

Nella comes to Amsterdam, the young bride of Johannes Brandt, a man quite a few years her senior and a very successful merchant trader. While the house looks like a typical wealthy household it is anything but and Nella has to piece its secrets together with the help of the mysterious miniaturist.

My Thoughts

This book had so much potential. The elements were all there. Yet, it managed to fall flat and I was left wondering why I bothered to read it. I probably wouldn't have kept going if it wasn't a book club pick.

I found some of the prose to be repetitive. Because of this repetition it really hindered the story from progressing. And I found that the story pace was slooow. The characters never really developed into full people. This made it hard to really like any of them, or feel sorry for them or find compassion for them. I did like that near the end Nella finally seemed to get a backbone and took charge of her life, but by that point it really didn't matter.

I really don't know what the point of the character of the miniaturist was. And it was never explained whether the miniaturist was really a seer or the other people were just crazy and seeing things. And what was the point of the bird? I don't know.

I found the atmosphere of the story to be cold and grey. There is nothing wrong with that type of atmosphere, but I found it rather distracting and that is bad. The book took place in the winter and the author describes how cold and icy the house could get. It seemed weird to me, and I found myself getting distracted trying to figure out how these people didn't get frostbite or loose some toes, especially if it really was as cold as the author seemed to be describing. Like was it really cold, like Canadian cold, or was it more European cold that is usually around the freezing mark? There is a difference.

For a first book it wasn't too bad, and I would probably give the author another chance. This was just not my favourite.