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Glen

Definitely worth a read

Reviewed in Australia on 6 January 2020

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I read this book after finishing The Weekend, another good read recommendation. The Dutch House was by far the better read. I really enjoyed the writing style together with the wonderful relationship that evolved between brother and sister. I spent most of a day in my holidays reading it from start to finish.
Definitely recommend.

2 people found this helpful

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beverley

Family dynamics draw you in to this story as it explores the way our present lives are shaped by what has gone before , both in the sense of inherited mannerisms and our inherent sense of being true to ourselves.

Reviewed in Australia on 13 February 2020

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is a book to devour in as few sittings as you can manage. I fear if you put it down to think about it overmuch it may not be picked up again.
It’s slow moving in plot and so character driven that what world events are taking place outside the bubble of their lives may not even exist.
However, like me, possibly you will thoroughly enjoy the writing and find yourself so drawn to the characters’ quests for identity ( even though the author cleverly conceals this notion from the characters perspective) that you will be very happy in your own bubble of created imagery of a family tied to their feelings of what their home means to them.

One person found this helpful

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Hannah p

Good but not great

Reviewed in Australia on 14 February 2020

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

While initially I liked the story, it seemed to drag on and I found myself feeling like I was always waiting for something interesting to happen. The book is well written; characters well developed; but the whole book was just lacking something I can’t put my finger on.

2 people found this helpful

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Reviewed in Australia on 20 January 2020

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

What a gently written, flowing and original book. I found it to be just about flawless. A story of time and change. The ending felt a little too contrived but was nice anyway.

One person found this helpful

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lee finnane

I lived this book.

Reviewed in Australia on 2 January 2020

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I was spellbound by the characters in this novel, I felt I knew them all personally and lived with them,day by day, as their lives unraveled.
What more can I say, READ IT and judge for yourself.

One person found this helpful

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Pebbles

Sentimental saga with central character being a house.

Reviewed in Australia on 28 February 2020

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Read this as a book club book. Did have a lot of discussion both good and bad.
Well written, all characters to me were flawed and let the past control their futures. Well written insights to each character

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keith

Interesting story

Reviewed in Australia on 17 January 2020

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

An interesting enough story, but I found the writing rather pedestrian I'm sorry to say - it never really lifted off the page.

One person found this helpful

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Amber Anderson

Not as good as I’d hoped

Reviewed in Australia on 7 February 2020

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I was excited to read this book after reading the reviews. But I liked this book. But I didn’t love it.
The story didn’t really keep me hooked and I felt like the characters were missing something for me. I just didn’t connect.

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Top international reviews

Ralph Blumenau

I did not find the book entirely credible

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 November 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

The handsome and characterful house had been built by a Dutch couple called VanHoebeek in 1922 when it was in the open country just outside Philadelphia, and it had been bought by Cyril Conroy in 1946 who also had a lot of other properties he rented out. He was a Catholic and lived there with his wife Elna and two children, Maeve and, seven years younger, Danny. Although Mr Conroy said that he had bought the house for his wife, Elna identified with poor and felt a mission to minister to them. She hated the house, and had gone to India, leaving the family when Danny, the narrator, was just three; and Maeve had looked after her brother. As Danny grew older, he monitored Maeve’s diabetes whenever he could. They were devoted to each other. Maeve was aided by two splendid housekeepers, Sandy and Jocelyn, and initially by Fiona, a nanny they called Fluffy, who had worked for the Van Hoebeckes. Fluffy had been dismissed because, in a fit of irritation, she had hit little Danny with a wooden spoon, so hard that it left a scar near his eye.
At the age of 49, Mr Doyle married again: Andrea, a Protestant of 31 with two young daughters of her own, Norma and Bright, respectively three and five years younger than Danny, whom she brought into the house. The little girls took to Danny and Maeve, though Andrea did not. She was a Protestant whereas the Conroys were Catholics. It was not a good marriage. Mr Conroy once said that Andrea had married him because she wanted the house. Perhaps he married her because, unlike his previous wife, she shared his love for the house and its contents. Andrea almost always got her way: her husband rarely stood up to her wishes. Maeve and Danny had disliked Andrea from the start, and the dislike was mutual. Andrea also constantly found reasons to criticize Sandy and Jocelyn. When Maeve was away at school in New York, Andrea reorganized the house, moved her eldest daughter into Maeve’s room and when Maeve was home of the holidays, she was moved into a small room up in the attic. So she hardly ever stayed at home – living in her dorm in New York during the holidays or staying with friends. When she graduated, she returned to Philadelphia, got a job helping to run a business and lived in a little apartment instead of in the Dutch House.
Mr Conroy died in 1963, when Danny was 15. Andrea never forgave Danny and Maeve for having told her the news only after they had been to their father dead in the hospital, and for having arranged for their father to be buried in a Catholic cemetery instead of a Protestant one.
Mr Conroy had left the house to her, not to his own children. All he had done for Danny and Andrea’s children was to set up a trust for their education through high school and college. He had also made Andrea a partner in his business. Maeve and Danny offered to take over running the Conroy business: Maeve had accounting experience in a firm she worked for, and Danny had always accompanied his father when he went to collect the rents. But not only did Andrea refuse (she would sell the entire business), but she asked Maeve to take Danny away from the house, with immediate effect: she would not raise her stepson. He moved into Maeve’s little apartment. Andrea also dismissed Sandy and Jocelyn without notice.
Danny eventually went to Choate as a boarder and then to the Columbia Medical School in New York, though he had no intention to become a doctor and after his graduation went into real estate, as his father had done. Maeve will do his accounts.
Every two or three weeks Danny went to visit Maeve in Philadelphia. And, every couple of months or so, he and Maeve would drive up to the Dutch House and look at it for 15 minutes or so. They were still doing it twenty-seven years after Andrea had turned them out. They never went in.
Part Two.
Much of this part is about Danny’s relationship with Celeste Norcross, a girl he met on a train in 1965 and whom, after a lot of ups and downs, he would eventually marry. They have two children, May and Kevin. Maeve does not approve of Celeste, and Celeste resents the close relationship between the siblings.
Fluffy resurfaces, and from her Danny learns that his mother was back in the United States. When Danny and Celeste have their first child, Fluffy was engaged to be May’s nanny, and, through her, Danny learns a great deal more about the past - not only about his parents (Fluffy had had an affaire with Danny’s father), but also about the VanHoebeeks.

Part Three.
At the beginning of Part Three, Maeve had a serious heart attack and was in hospital. When Danny went to the hospital, he saw that their mother Elna, now in her mid-seventies, was there. Fluffy had told Elna about the heart-attack. Maeve was delighted to see her, 47 years after Elna had left them: she had always missed her mother, and forgave her long absence. But Danny, who had never known her, could not forgive her, because her departure had led to Andrea evicting him from the Dutch House. When Maeve went home from hospital, Elna went to live with her. Danny was frigid with her whenever he drove over to see Maeve. Only when his beloved sister told him that Danny owed it to her to be friendly towards Elna did he resolve to try.
And then one day Elna, who was driving with her Maeve and Danny in the car, drove over to the Dutch House; but, instead of just looking at it from the other side of the road, she drove right up to the house. Danny, at 45, must have looked like his father, for Andrea recognized him as such. She was suffering from some kind of dementia, and her daughter Norma had moved in to look after her. Andrea felt comfortable with Elna, and Norma wanted more help. Unbelievably, Elna moved into the Dutch House, and a fortnight later Maeve died. Elna stayed in the Dutch House after Andrea died. I did not like the ending: it was all rather abrupt and forced.
I am never quite happy with books in which there is too much back and forth in time; and this feature is particularly irritating in this book because there are not enough dates, so it is often very difficult to know at what stage in Danny’s life various episodes happen. And although many of the characters are well drawn, I also found much of the book quite hard to believe.

13 people found this helpful

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Titania78

A beautifully crafted family story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 October 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I read this book with perfect enjoyment. Whereas many english novelists tie in the landscape with the action of the story, in this case it is a house and its architecture which have a profound effect on all the characters. The narrator, the son of the family is always one step behind in understanding events or realising the way his own actions influence many developments. The characterisation is so well done, you really care about all the family members, except perhaps Andrea. Maeve, and her portrait hanging in the house, long after she has left are so significant..

8 people found this helpful

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pg

disappointing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 November 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

After reading all those 5 star reviews, I was expecting something fairly special. As others have said, it starts off with a sense of mystery and some crackling dialogue. I had high hopes but it becomes increasingly two dimensional. It was clear from the start that the mother would reappear at some point and I was intrigued about how this would be managed. I was disappointed at the flat monochrome we were given. She could have been drawn as a much more interesting and complex character. I was not convinced by her any more than I was by wicked stepmother Andrea. There was an unattractive (to me anyway) underpinning of religious sentiment running through the book which turned me off. Not a convert.

7 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Achingly insightful, phenomenally crafted.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 October 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Read by chance. Characters and plot totally convincing. Dialogue between siblings, parents and children, caught so well. I learnt about relationships through enjoying the subtleties exquisitely drawn.

9 people found this helpful

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abelianfjord

Good read hampered by careless editing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 October 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Too many typos. Maeve ( chapter 16, first line) is capitalised. One of many minor but accumulative, annoying errors.Good characterisation.

9 people found this helpful

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Lucille Grant

Exceptional family saga

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 December 2019

Verified Purchase

Exceptionally well crafted American family saga in which a sumptuous house, built by a Dutch couple, is a character in its own right. After Danny and Maeve's mother leaves their father he remarries. Andrea has two young daughters of her own. and is the epitome of a bad stepmother. She resents her stepchildren to the extent that when their father dies unexpectedly she throws them out. During the ensuing years they go back to the house, sitting outside and watching from their car but never once do they venture inside.

The story is told in two timelines from Danny's point of view and the only flaw in the book is that sometimes the switch although sometimes seamless, is hard to follow. The characters are superbly drawn and the plotting leaves no loose ends
Highly recommend for fans of Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Strout.

3 people found this helpful

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angela jacobs

Family Dynamics and Blended Families

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 October 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

The story was a good read. It was excellently written and kept my interest. The author had very good insight in to family dynamics concerning blended families. The ending was most surprising. I was able to relate to bits of the story as a step daughter and having a step sibling and having grown up with my father.

4 people found this helpful

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Client d'Amazon

Well written but lacking something

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 December 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

The house is at the centre of the book I felt a bit unsatisfied overall by the story. Would a young man really be so dependant on his sister and her obsessions that he would sit in a car with her for hours gazing at a house they had once lived in? Would he study medicine just to please his wife? There is a deep injustice at the heart of the book and there is no fairy tale ending of redemption, sadly.

3 people found this helpful

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Hugh Cummins

Over-praised.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 November 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Another over-praised novel. Not bad, but not nearly as good as the rave reviews. Reviewers and critics, I think, get fed up reading bad books. When a slightly different book comes along, they over-react. Dutch House is 'non-linear', that is, it jerks forward and back ward through time. Confusing? Or a comment on memory? It's a bit like a year of 'Neighbours' programs, but with the episodes jumbled. But still a soap opera. And I thought Danny and Maeve's obsession with a house a bit absurd. For all that - readable, and the characters likeable.

3 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

I don't know, I don't know

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 November 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I was quite gripped by this. But, all great English novels are about houses (Wuthering Heights, Howard's End, Brideshead Revisited), and this is not English but American. So it's not really about a house, but about a family, and, of course, about money. Well, OK. It was OK. No spoilers re the ending, but such a disappointment.

2 people found this helpful

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Mig Bardsley

I loved it

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 February 2020

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I really like Anne Patchett's work and this was no exception. Her gift for drawing vivid characters without sentimentality or excess is a delight and her beautiful writing is another.
Unlike other reviewers, I didn't feel that the house itself was a character in the novel, more that it was a striking and colourful stage around which they played out their lives - or a door through which their feelings and emotions passed, one way and another and through which the reader could see the living and changing characters more clearly. It was very well done.
It is wonderful how Patchett always manages to make a story full of people's lives and changes and each book is quite different. I really enjoyed this one.

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gilly cox

Mesmerizing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 February 2020

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I loved this book from the moment I saw the cover! It spoke of a soul caught in time, wrapped up in the pages. I wondered how the girl fitted with the title. I was not disappointed. Hooked by the cover I started reading straight away and have hardly stopped til reaching the end. Powerful writing, full of detail, unexpected twists and turns that, along with the characters in the book, threw me off balance too! Thanks to the author for her explanation at the end re rationale for the cover which for me was such a pleasure to know. The whole experience touched my soul too.

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C.Campbell

Disappointing after all the hype

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 November 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I bought this book with high expectations after rave reviews. The first half was a good read. In the second half the story sagged, losing its momentum. It felt like more of the same, and more and more. Gave up.

2 people found this helpful

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Steven

Deserves the accolades

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 October 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Hard to sum up this book it needs to be read. Its poignance is sometimes visceral. I was pulled through the book and on closing the cover didn’t feel I had finished it.

2 people found this helpful

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joan white

Ludicrous, a complete waste of time

Reviewed in the United States on 29 September 2019

Verified Purchase

Although the author writes well and the characters are engaging, the plot is ridiculous. After finishing the book, I felt like I had overindulged in an all-you-can eat buffet, full of empty calories. The best novels either make you see life in a different way or at least encourage you to examine important questions. This, on the other hand, is pure tripe.

231 people found this helpful

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