I have devoured this book in less than 5 days and the sense of place and atmosphere of a freezing cold Amsterdam in the 17th century was excellent and I was totally enthralled at first, but ultimately this huge best seller left me rather cold too. I felt really disappointed at the end. So many plot lines were just left dangling or just fizzled out. It's that same feeling of :
"ehh?!! I didn't get that." which I haven't felt so strongly since I read The Time Travellers Wife. ( another over hyped book!)
The atmosphere and beautiful writing were great and I was totally sucked in but there were far too many holes in the plot, whole chunks left unexplained, 'big' reveals which were totally obvious and just as things were getting interesting the book ended!
I think the writer was just trying to pack far too much modern stuff into a 17th century back drop. Ideas about gender, race, homophobia, greed, corruption, bigotry, along with food and religion were all packed in and the 18 year old main character seemed to take it all in her stride. The title is misleading too, the bloody miniaturist just fizzled away. The main plot device which made me read this book at speed was a damp squib! I didn't get it. Maybe I just wanted a rational explanation at the end but this book just petered out. Oh well, Jessie Burton seems to have done lots of research and she creates a great atmosphere but this book was no way as satisfying at the end as I wanted it to be. This book ended up being more like a painting to me, rather flat!
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