Rating: 
Summary: Lovely
Review: Is it possible that two different writers wrote two different novels about the same painter in the same year? I must admit that Vermeer is new to me, and introduced first through Girl With a Pearl Earring, and now through Girl in Hyacinth Blue. I found both novels exquisite, and well worth the time. Anytime a book makes me want to learn more about something...a place, a person, a time in history...i consider it time well invested. I have since read up on Jan Vermeer and his life, and find his paintings to be truly beautiful. And although I know that this particular painting is fictional, the story is completely believable and intriguing. I want to see a Vermeer for myself, and hope I'll have that chance someday.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Journey
Review: I read this book for a book group. I don't usually like short stories but this book is completely different. Each short story could stand alone, but they are all connected.The beginning was a little slow, but if you stick with it, the book is an amazing gem. Follow a paintings life back to its creation. This painting has had some interesting travels. Try this book, I think that you will like it.
Rating:
Summary: Passion Versus Perspective
Review: In Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Susan Vreeland crafts the history of Vermeer's fictitious "Girl in Hyacinth Blue" from the chilly study of a contemporary math teacher to the passionate painter's daughter who sat for the portrait. The eight stories which vaguely map this history challenge the structures of human relationship by delving into the private world of the observer...and hovering there in the tension between passion and perspective. To read the stories in the context of chronology (ie, backwards from the end of the book) is to read of the decline of the personal in favor of the proprietal. To read them in proper order is to join Vreeland in a conspiracy of engagement in human love and passion for life against chronology, current culture and the 20th century's most heinous crime.
Rating:
Summary: love life of a painting
Review: An officially unauthenticated, previously unknown Vermeer surfaces in an unlikely location: a chilly, locked room in the house of a secretive college professor. An art professor colleague of the painting's owner narrates the initial story in this linked series of stories tracing the "life" of the painting back to it's creation in Vermeer's studio. We meet each of its owners only briefly, but the painting itself (necessarily unseen, of course) grows more and more vibrant as the timeline grows shorter. It was a very quick read, surprisingly so. The writing is affecting and vivid, yet the stories are strangely forgettable - what remains is the description of the painting, and what it meant to the characters (security, money, plunder, etc.) during the time they lived with it. When I finished the book, I had that familiar feeling of fond loss that comes when you have to leave a character you've come to see as a friend - but, of course, it was the painting I felt that way about. It's really not fair that it doesn't exist.
Rating: 
Summary: Refreshing writing
Review: This is not a book or genre I would normally have picked to read, but a good friend recommended it to me and I was amazed myself by simply loving it. What made the book so interesting and special is the way Vreeland structured the whole story. It is very innovative and refreshing to read such a well written story. They story revolves around a possible 36th Vermeer painting - there are only 35 in known existence. Vreeland makes the painting, in a sense, the main character and whole book revolves around the people that have been touched by it. I don't want to give too much away, because I read it without knowing anything about the book and that makes the unfolding of the story extra special. I like the compactness of the story, but was amazed by the writing. It's one of those books you don't want to finish.
Rating:
Summary: 3.5 stars
Review: This book was based on a very interesting idea of tracing back the history of a painting. When the book starts, we are introduced to a painting and its origins are in question. Through a series of short stories, we see each of the previous owners of the painting and find out where it has come from. The transition from owner to owner was choppy until later in the book. Because it is a series of short stories, I found it difficult to connect to the characters since they were only part of the book for a short time. The painting was well described, but the one on my copy of the book didn't match the description contained within the novel. A decent read for anyone who likes historical fiction.
Rating:
Summary: An expressive masterpiece painted with words of many colors!
Review: Susan Vreeland, in what is to me, a very unusual format, brings to life a fictitious painting of Vermeer. So expertly is it done, that you find yourself yearning to stand in front of "Girl In Hyacinth Blue". There are a mere eight chapters...expertly and artistically created.Each one is a story in itself. Starting with a mathematics professor who is hiding a painting he believes to be a true Vermeer. His obsession with its' beauty has driven him away from the real world.He works and returns home, no friends, no socializing..his only world the Vermeer, locked in a back room. We are led in each succeeding chapter, backwards though time, in a tale of how the preceding owner gained possession and the story surrounding that particular acquisition. A fascinating journey further and further BACK in time until we witness in the last chapter the actual painting of the picture and not only discover who the artist actually was, but also the identity of the "Girl In Hyacinth Blue". I was taught in my writing classes to "paint a picture with words"...and indeed Ms. Vreeland had done just that.From a figment of her imagination, by the end of this beautifully conceived and written novel, we too can see the brilliant hyacinth blue of the young girls smock, the half-filled glass of milk, her brother's shirt in her lap awaiting the first prick of the needle as she sowed on the buttons to make it whole again, the sunlight in her hair under her starched white cap and her lovely hand which "had fallen palm upward on the shirt, her delicate fingers curled." Ms. Vreeland has truly created a gem in the literary world.Her novel has won three awards and hopefully she will give us many, many more moments of reading joy!
Rating:
Summary: A gentle writer with a good story
Review: Susan Vreeland puts words to paper as visually as a painter puts color on canvas. There are no fireworks or attention getting crises to hook you into the book, but you are drawn in, nonetheless. This is a very discussible book for book club groups. This book has the quality of true art, that is, each time you read you see something new in it.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting approach...
Review: Susan Vreeland takes the story of an undiscovered Vermeer painting and takes the reader back in time, from many of the times it changed hands. Each story woven together creates a masterpiece. Though I found it hard to keep track of how the painting had switched owners occasionally, it was for the most part understandable. I loved how each chapter was almost a stand-alone piece, yet tied in with all the other parts of the story. An excellent read.
Rating: 
Summary: Going "Dutch"
Review: I can't "go Dutch" with these two girls - Girl In Hyacinth Blue and Girl With A Pearl Earring. I do not like them equally. My book club read both books, thinking we had a unique opportunity to compare and contrast two good books which would complement each other. Everyone liked Pearl, and no one liked Hyacinth. Well, not entirely. Everyone liked one story in Hyacinth, and interestingly enough, each person's favorite story was different!
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