'The Miniaturist': Why is this disappointing book so popular?

I just finished reading The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton. Published first in the U.K. and in the U.S. this past August, the book has been receiving very good reviews and has made several bestseller lists. But I was disappointed in the book, and wondered why it is so popular.

The things that make any book a success are often unpredictable. Sometimes word-of-mouth praise becomes a groundswell. Sometimes it's a mention by Oprah or another celebrity. And sometimes, albeit less often, it's because the book is so damn good and readers recognize that an author is incredibly talented and original, as is the case now with David Mitchell (his newest is The Bone Clocks).

Publishers spend a lot of time trying to figure out what made a book successful, in the hope of discerning a replicable formula. Here are my theories about The Miniaturist:

The cover
Covers sell books. The publishing industry even has its very own cover designer celebrity: Chip Kidd of Alfred A. Knopf. You can and you do judge a book by its cover (unless you only read ebooks, in which case you are cheated of this opportunity).

The cover of The Miniaturist is lovely. As you can see from the photo above, it is of a woman dressed in Dutch period costume. In her skirt are the images of a European town square with people walking about. The whole picture is washed in a melancholy shade of blue.

The U.K. edition had a different, also quite beautiful cover, which showed the interior of the doll house that plays a crucial role in the story. Either way, your eye would be attracted to this book.

The setting
The book takes place in Amsterdam in 1687. This is the same era as Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, which also takes place in 17th century Holland (although in Delft, not Amsterdam). That book was a huge bestseller, and was made into a movie with Scarlett Johansson. It tells an imagined story about the creation of a famous Vermeer painting. The Miniaturist also shares a setting with another book connected to a Vermeer painting, The Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland, which was also a bestseller.

Am I saying that people are reading The Miniaturist because it is making a connection in their minds with these other bestsellers? Yes. That's why I read it.

The author
The author is not well-known but she has appeal. She is from London and studied at Oxford. She is an actress and her pretty author photo graces the back flap. This is her first book. This all makes for a good author platform.

The supernatural
A key element of the story is the doll house that the main character Nella is given by her new husband, Johannes, a wealthy and older Amsterdam merchant. She hires a craftsperson who is called a miniaturist to make items to decorate her doll house, and these items turn out to be mysteriously and even frighteningly prophetic. The more this mysterious miniaturist predicts and perhaps influences Nella's life, the more the story relies on the presence of unknown supernatural forces. Readers seem to like this.

I am perfectly willing to go along with an author who includes plot elements that are inexplicable. As a reviewer said in recent The New York Times about a wonderful new novel, The Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland, "you're allowed to keep reading for sheer pleasure even if you're not sure you completely understand everything that's going on." I'm okay with not completely understanding the plot, but it has to hold together and I need to sense the author's controlling hand. In The Miniaturist, only later in the book are we given any vague reason why or how the miniaturist has come by these powers. Between that and the secret Nella learns about Johannes' life, the book feels to me like a mish-mash of overly dramatic elements that don't really hang together.

And yet, the book is selling well, so go figure!