Rating: 
Summary: A pearl of a book
Review: I just loved this book and it is one that I will reread from time to time. It is beautifully written and holds your interest from start to finish. I recommend this to anyone who likes a good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Girl with a Pearl Earring
Review: I recently visited the Vermeer exhibit in NYC and was captivated by the beauty of his work. I saw this book displayed in the youth section of the library, but because of the subject matter I decided to give it a read, not expecting "great literature". I was pleasently surprised by the authors beautiful use of words and although the main character was somewhat contradictory, it was a thoroughly satisfying book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent.
Review: I was a bit confused by reading some of the reviews on this book and thought I would write one of my own. This was an excellent book for me because I could identify with the artist and with the female charcter. It hadn't occurred to me until I read some of the other reviews, that if you do not do artwork in some form or another, or if you are not a woman, there are certain aspects of this book which could be disregarded. This was easy to read, not overly desciptive, which was a relief. It did remind me of a book one might read in school, focusing on the use of symbolism, which was evident throughout. Something which was sadly lost on one of the reviewers, and something which I thought was essential to understanding the novel and the main character Griet, was the submission, the violation of Griet, the girl with the pearl earring, by the painter Vermeer as he forced her to wear them, even putting them in her ears, painfully, himself. This act would destroy Griet's position in the household, and change her world. It mattered not whether she let another man take her after that, for she was already violated, permanently by the painter. I realize this might be a confusing review. But like the painting itself, which appears simple, a portrait of a woman against a black background, it has many intriguing details if you take the time to look.
Rating:
Summary: I disagree with the other reviewer so far...
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and will share it with my friends. I will also see what other books by Tracy Chevalier are available. Yes, it was a fairly quick read (I'm not as fast as some of the other reviewers... it took me a few days to get through it) but I came to like the characters in the book, and I was quite fascinated by the story that Ms. Chevaliers pulled from the vermeer painting! We should all be so imaginative!
Rating: 
Summary: "A-TISKET, A-TASKET..."
Review: If you like the Vermeer's paintings (and who doesn't appreciate their surprising details?) then you will enjoy this story about the daughter of a tile painter reduced to being hired out as a maid to Vermeer and his family. The juxtaposition of Vermeer's trained and educated taste to Griet's natural ability to distinguish imagery is dynamic, as is Griet's education, both sentimental and artistic. In the Vermeer household the creative process occurs symbolically and physically above - Griet does the grinding of the colours in her attic room - while the life of the family, in evidence largely through their spying, manipulations and petty jealousies, occurs below. These family caricatures menace our heroine indiscriminately, in order to serve a plot that depends on maintaining secrecy, by acting as a family of spies that thwart her in the mission to stealthly help Vermeer in preparing his paints and scenes. With the exception of the maid, the characters in this book do not grow, change or discover each other and the lack of comprehension between the members of the household is tiring. The plot turns on the fact that Vermeer has painted the maid wearing his wife's pearl earrings. The question of how the maid managed to wear the pearl earrings for the painting becomes paramount. When assembled as a family, everyone is silent in front of Vermeer's distraught wife, even though the painter and his mother-in-law are culpable for convincing the maid to pose and wear the earrings. Some kind of confrontation between these related people would have been more evocative and less irritating. There are some grating anachonisms: it is absurd to hear Griet say to her boyfriend that at 18 or even 17 years of age she is too young to marry (in 17th century Holland where life expectancy must have been less than half of what it is today!). The community setting with its active and gossipy markets gives the story its drive but it never goes much further than that of a girl continually trapped and menaced from all sides such as in a fable.
Rating:
Summary: A classic, beautiful look at the "story" behind a painting
Review: Tracy Chevalier's "Girl With A Pearl Earring" is one of the best novels I have read so far this summer. I received the book from Amazon.com on a Saturday afternoon, and was finished with it by Monday afternoon! It was that good and that intriguing, so much so that I plan on reading it again. It is a difficult book to put down, and from the moment the main character, sixteen-year-old Griet, begins to speak, the reader becomes entrapped by her simple but strong voice - Chevalier immediately impresses us with the fact that this girl has an underlying strength and sensitivity that will carry her through the novel. When her father loses his tile trade due to an accident, Griet is forced into service as a maid in order to support the family. She is employed in the home of the painter Johannes Vermeer and his skittish and eternally pregnant wife, Catharina. Griet is immediately set up for trouble in her new life because the master Vermeer has taken an interest in her - from the way she arranges vegetables according to color scheme to the way she neatly and professionally manages to clean the painter's studio without disturbing an object. This immediately incites the jealous dislike of Catharina, whom Chevalier makes clear has never inspired her husband in such a way, as well as the malicious vengeance of Cornelia, one of Vermeer's daughters, whose guard over her father takes the form of an everlasting attempt to destroy Griet's position. Griet has few champions in the house: Vermeer's mother-in-law, the formidable Maria Thins, sees and approves of the artistic interest that Griet has awakened in her son-in-law, but never goes so far as to defend her from Catharina or Cornelia. Tanneke, another servant in the house, vaguely resents Griet's intrusion on domestic life, and makes no scruples about where her loyalties lie. Thus, it becomes up to Griet to fight for a place in her new home. This task becomes all the more complicated once Vermeer asks her to work in his studio grinding paints, as well as occasionally modeling for his works when the original sitters cannot be present. Griet's love for the paints and the studio is a simple beauty, and makes a triumph out of what would have ordinarily been a drab life. But it is when Vermeer begins work on her portrait for one of his patrons that things begin to unravel. Griet has suddenly been drawn into the hidden, beautifully painted domestic scenes that Vermeer is now famous for, but it is only when the girl puts on a pair of pearl earrings to complete the picture that the final rage of Catharina and Cornelia is incited. Griet herself is an inspiring character, and she moves the reader much as she "moved" Vermeer, so much so that the reader finds it difficult to accept the fact that "Girl With A Pearl Earring" could have been anyone other than Chevalier's Griet. Chevalier's language is lovely and textured, a treasure truly to be savored, and she evokes a clear and precise picture of life in seventeenth-century Holland. Although little is known of the Dutch master Vermeer and nothing at all is known about his famous muse, the novel "Girl With A Pearl Earring" is a wonderful myth that makes one want to believe that all was as Chevalier has dreamed it. A true jewel, and highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Audio book reader sounds like an old woman
Review: Don't purchase the audiobook version read by Ruth Ann Phimister.The main character is a girl, ergo, The *Girl* With a Pearl Earring. The reader sounds like she's pushing 80. Very irritating. I kept having to tell myself that the story was being recounted by the girl when she was an old lady, but there's nothing in the actual book to suggest this. How can a recorded book company go so wrong in chosing the voice of their reader? It's simply maddening.
Rating:
Summary: FAKE ERUIDITION
Review: I wonder if the popularity of this book is more a factor of the wonderful cover art than what lies between. Griet is a supposed innocent who balks at being painted with her mouth open but who, in a weakly established fit of psychological displacement, apparently has no qualms about pre-marital rutting in a back alley with the butcher's son. This scene, by the way, being virtually the only human and/or humane "action" in the entire book which is otherwise replete with mundane observations supposedly about the Vemeer family in Delft but could just as easily have been about the Van Smiths or the Van Joneses. Griet is difficult to like. She is astoundingly rude and inexplicably milk-toasty by turns. She puts up with arduous, back-breaking house work but has huge qualms about piercing an ear. Chevalier's characterization of Vemeer is worse: he is presented as a unidimensional puppet. You neither care much for him, or about him. The only thing we know for sure is that he had marital relations because the Vemeers had 11 children. The popularity of this book astounds me. You are better off spending your time looking at Vemeer's evocative, luminous paintings than reading this book. It is not a book for the serious reader for whom plot, character and dramatic narrative appeal.
Rating:
Summary: 6th grade reading!
Review: I liked this book, but after reading reviews and seeing it on the Best Seller's Lists, I was very surprised by it. It was entertaining and somewhat informative, but frankly, it read like a grade school book. It took me less than two hours to begin and finish it, and I was even trying to ready slowly! I don't know if I will be as willing to try another book by this author.
Rating:
Summary: Stultifyingly Boring. Offensive, Even.
Review: Did Tracy Chevalier ever read a novel? Though she attempts to shackle her readers to the text by using quaint historical details, it is clear she knows little of life in Europe during the 17th century and has indulged in only a cursory reading of the history of the period. Of course, the plot is not interesting enough to hold us on its own. -Women in Girl- Flattened into 2 dimensions, anyone looks turgid, without dynamism or emotion. Catharina was a witch and the protagonist a victimized, though "clever" survivor. Gimme a break, man. Does any character possess the faculty of logic? Where is the author's examination of the economics behind decisions made by her women? What are the trade-offs that made the characters who they were? An interest in that might have repaired some of the damage done to readers of this novel who will come away with the lesson that there is only great good and extreme evil in the world, not process or human agency. -Use of Language- I can not point to one satisfactory turn of phrase in Girl. A deadening rhythm of medium-length sentences prevails, lulling the reader's mind further into inactivity. This is like watching an A&E movie when you can't press mute. Chevalier, go take a dose of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, espresso, you need it, girl. -Hero Worship- As we know precious little about Vermeer's character by the end of Chevalier's book, the novel appears to be an enterprise of hero worship. What criticism does Chevalier have to offer? What accolades to the artist? The only position Chevailer takes in the novel is that of a mundane observer. Fine. Vermeer can be meticulous, not money-hungry. But make it interesting. Make it original! Observe something worthy of our attention and our $15!! Vermeer was a "genius" in her book. How did he get like that? We've seen his paintings already. Don't repeat what they look like to us. Tell us what motivated the man. What his political inclinations at "the guild" were, what he ate for supper, what his family told him at supper. We know he's respected by art critics already. You don't need to reaffirm that for us. The fact that novels like this get published and turn into best sellers is an insult to American culture.
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