Rating: 
Summary: Simple and elegant
Review: The best thing about this book is the way you must view the people through their simple, uncomplicated stoicism. The emotion comes through, then, like the view of an eclipse, that you can't look directly at to know. This one stayed with me.
Rating: 
Summary: An Enigmatic Portrait of a Lady and a Painter
Review: Girl with a Pearl Earring is a wonderful story painted by Ms Chevalier. It is a page-turning story where a famous painting and its real-life Dutch artist is brought together with the fictional character Griet, who becomes the girl with a pearl earring.
Little is known about who exactly Vermeer was painting when he brought to life what is affectionately known as the "Dutch Mona Lisa", thus, Chevalier takes this wonderous opportunity to create a fictional story around how this painting came to life.
Griet enter's the household as a maid in order to help her own family after her father is injured. She slowly works her way up to becoming Vermeers assistant in the studio, and even adds her own artistic edge from time to time. Envenually, her intimacey with the painter grows, and she learns more about herself in a short time in an artists studio, then she would have learned laundering the families' linens and running errands for years.
A wonderful book--the last 100 pages of which you will not want to put down!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: Tracy Chevalier's Girl With a Pearl Earring felt like falling into Alice's looking glass. Chevalier takes her readers into Vermeer's painting and brings the model to life. She turns a two-dimensional canvas into a living, breathing person and paints Griet a rich landscape of a life. A wonderful novel.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Writing
Review: "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is a heartbreakingly beautiful tale of a time and place few people know much about. Based on historical fact, what little of it there is anyway (the painting is real, the history behind it imagined, but well researched), this story of a young maid/muse in the house of legendary Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. It is a beautiful tale of love, jealousy and human nature. The characters are richly drawn and young girl, Griet, from whose perspective the story is told is a compelling and believable protagonist. As interesting as the book's gentle plot (there are no big "events," per se, but the book still manages to move along at a brisk pace), is the look at a culture little known to most Americans. "Girl with a Pearl Earring" reminds me of other sweet, detail-oriented books I've read, such as "Memoirs of a Geisha." Both transported me to another time and place which, before reading these novels, I knew little about but have learned to love, thanks to the author's writing prowess.
Rating:
Summary: awesome
Review: this book kept me reading every chance I got. I finished it in two days; I couldn't put it down. The use of language and description was fascinating. I would definitely recommend it. It was awesome!
Rating:
Summary: Stop hesitating. Worth your time.
Review: It took a year for me to buy this book, and I wish someone had told me to spend the time and money earlier. Chevalier maintains a voice throughout Girl with a Pearl Earring that builds a character, a time, and a life that is both that of a young poor maid in 17th century Holland and of her broader culture. It takes you into a world full of tensions as timeless as men and women, rich and poor, upstairs and downstairs, but without the violence, language and graphic sex expected in today's world. And all are driven by the unerring voice of Griet.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing, Enjoyable Historical Fiction
Review: One of my dearest friends gave me this book to read with the assurance that I'd enjoy it and that it was "an easy read." I did and it was. I was quickly pulled into a historical period of which I know next to nothing -- 17th century Holland. Chevalier's descriptions are richly detailed, her characters seem real and engaging. The book pulled me in and kept me there. Story-wise the ending was somewhat unsatisfying but quite realistic.
Rating: 
Summary: Ho Hum ...
Review: If I had paid full price for this novel I would have been mad...luckily I got a discount. I learned (once again!)..just because it's on the bestseller list doesn't mean it's a great book. In this case, a milktoast plot with boring characters, as well as the author's inability to write interesting descriptions make it a great read for some people. People who don't want to bother with pesky plots and tedious historical details could come to call this a masterpiece. I'm guessing that this period in history was interesting with things like the plague, religious conflict, and oppression of all kinds, but the author skims over these interesting points as if there is something more interesting just around the corner...trust me. There isn't. The author seems to have written this novel very quickly. It reads like a summary of a story. It has very short sentences. This can be dull. Get it?
I suppose that the life of a maid must have been difficult and tiring in the 17th century, but Griet seems to stay pleasant and intact very well through it all. The only thing she has to conquer is the fact that everyone hates her. She doesn't have a single female friend in the entire town! This is going on the 4th book that I've read recently, where the female character is beautiful, virtuous, hated, vicitmized and has no friends. Miraculously, these heroines remain positive with virtually no support system. I'm getting tired of this! How about some depth!? Please!
Don't bother with this one. It's about as interesting as 'The Bridges of Madison County'....another generic bestseller for the masses.
Rating:
Summary: Get Inside Her Head
Review: Girl With A Pearl Earring
The book Girl With a Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier, is an insightful look into the life of the protagonist Griet. Griet is a young woman living in Holland with her caring but manipulative mother, blinded father, and young enthusiastic sister. Out of the blue, her mother informs her that she is to leave to work for the painter Vermeer and his household in order to make ends meet for her family. Reluctantly, she packs her few possessions and heads off to the other side of town, where her life will be completely different. First of all, her new house is in the Catholic section of town; having grown up a Protestant, she feels very out of place. Secondly, she knows no one there and is treated poorly by almost everyone she meets.
As she masterfully works cleaning Master Vermeer's studio and running errands for his mother in law, the old widow Maria Thins, she finds how difficult her place in life is. Half the days Vermeer is kindly and affectionate towards her while other days he is distant and cold. Griet, amidst all her troubles, finds herself falling for Pieter, the butcher's charming son. Although she and her master clearly have feelings for each other they are kept apart by their class differences. This makes things even more complicated for the young Griet. She must worry about was is best for her family and herself, although she does not have much of a say as a young woman in seventeenth-century Holland. Tracy Chevalier manages to really get inside Griet's head while keeping the reader thoroughly enthralled.
This book was by far one of the best I have read and I highly recommend it. One reason this book is so wonderful is because the reader gets to know Griet so well that they feel as though they are right there with her. The reader can truly understand and relate to many of the feelings she confronts. Although Girl With a Pearl Earring takes place in the seventeenth century, her problems are not unlike the ones many young women face today. It is often hard to tell where one fits in, especially in a group that is foreign to you. Being able to feel for the protagonist made a big difference in how read the book and it kept me turning pages late into the night. Another reason I found this book interesting was because the characters were so deep. At the beginning you are introduced to the major characters but as the story progresses more is revealed about their personalities and you are able to sympathize with even Griet's antagonists. For example Tanneke, the other household maid, is often cross and bitter towards Griet. However, you learn that although she may not be so sympathetic to Griet she is a good person at heart and is not set out just to make Griet unhappy (as one may assume at first). This book was fascinating for me because of deepness behind Griet and her acquaintances.
Although I greatly enjoyed reading Girl With a Pearl Earring, I understand that others may not because they do not know what it's like to be a fourteen-year-old girl. Although the protagonist is a girl and many of the issues she deals with are due to her gender (especially at that particular period of history) it is not a legitimate reason not to read the book just because you are not or never were a young woman. There is much more behind the story that boys can appreciate too. Although they may not be able to sympathize with Griet's issues it does not mean that they can not get an idea of what it feels like to be her, and enjoy it while they are at it. This is great book for anybody to read and be able to get an amazing sense of seventeenth-century Holland.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as hype
Review: I read this book back in April as part of a book group; I don't know if I would have picked it up otherwise, being naturally contrary and suspicious of success. The writing is good, and the plot is O.K., but about halfway through it started to lose me, enough so that I forgot to read the last chapter and didn't notice until several days later, when I was putting it away. Griet's attempts to stifle her emotions in various scenes seem to have the same stultifying effect on the entire atmosphere of the novel. (Except, of course, for my wanting to kill the eldest child of the house, who is truly a little snot.) For those wanting a far more entertaining fictional account of Holland at about the same time, I wholeheartedly recommend _Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister_ by Gregory Maguire.
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