Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Review: The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

Publisher: Ecco
Pages: 400
Received: Received a copy from Harper Collins Canada in exchange for an honest review

Release Date: August 26, 2014
Buy From Chapters.ca / Buy From BookDepository.com

Goodreads Synopsis:

On a brisk autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt. But her new home, while splendorous, is not welcoming. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office-leaving Nella alone with his sister, the sharp-tongued and forbidding Marin.

But Nella's world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist-an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways . . .

Johannes' gift helps Nella to pierce the closed world of the Brandt household. But as she uncovers its unusual secrets, she begins to understand-and fear-the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society where gold is worshipped second only to God, to be different is a threat to the moral fabric of society, and not even a man as rich as Johannes is safe. Only one person seems to see the fate that awaits them. Is the miniaturist the key to their salvation . . . or the architect of their destruction?

Enchanting, beautiful, and exquisitely suspenseful, The Miniaturist is a magnificent story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution, appearance and truth.

My Review:

This book takes me back to the roots of my favourite books, historical fiction, but something about this book does so much more than other historical books have done. This book added in a bit of a fantastical element with the characters and the introduction of this tiny model home that is furnished by a person who Nella has never met, and yet they seem to know her future.

I enjoyed Nella's character sometimes in this book, you see her grow over the course of the novel, she starts out as a young girl who is very naive to the world around her. She is newly married to Johannes and she doesn't understand what is actually going on around her. What I found creepy and yet very interesting to the story is how the miniaturist was never seen but knew so much about what was happening around Nella and her family, and this unknown person truly changed Nella's life by opening her eyes to what was being hidden. What I really loved is how Nella begins to stand up for herself a little more as the novel goes along. She begins to see that she doesn't understand everything, but she makes it her mission to know what is happening in her house.

Honestly, this book was so engrossing, you truly need to find out who the miniaturist is and how they really know everything that is going on in the Brandt household. This is a book that shows no one is who they truly make themselves out to be, there is always something being hidden. The mystery of something being hidden and the idea that no matter what it can be brought to the surface is what makes this such a great story. There is a little bit of everything to The Miniaturist and that makes this book one for everyone. 

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