Every woman is the architect of her own fortune. 
 While suffused with elegant prose and monumental themes and commentary on women and the female identity, The Miniaturist suffered from what I call beautiful nothingness. It has all the trappings of great historical fiction - commentary on gender and race, family drama, descriptions of cultural practices that do not read like a lecture, complex characters - but I could never figure out what the focus of the book was. Did Burton want to call attention to the role of women amidst the patriarchal backdrop of 17th century Amsterdam? Did she want to comment on the corruption of wealth? Was she interested in delving into the psychology of interracial relationships? Did she wish to explore the difficulties of being a pleasure-seeking heathen in an ultra-pious society? 
 A character-driven piece that was a little inconsistent and unclear with regards to said characters' motives, I personally thought some focus and more development of the titular character would have made a good book great, but it was still a worthwhile read.