Rating: 
Summary: Delightful theme, well done
Review: I had never paid much attention to Dutch painters until I read Girl with a Pearl Earring, so when I picked this one up I was ready to enjoy another sojourn into that interesting country. I liked the different approach to the painter and loved the way the author takes you backward on the journey of discovery. Delightful.
Rating: 
Summary: An enjoyable book
Review: I recently finished this book and have since passed it on to friends. I can't say that it was a masterpiece, but there was definitely something about it that captured me. The mysterious path that each individual story lead me down kept me wanting to turn to the next story to learn of its relationship to the previous one. Some of the vignettes were definitely better than others (and I especially enjoyed them as they went further back in history), but I enjoyed the "quickness" of each story and meeting each new character. Any monotony with a particular character might be quickly replaced by an entirely new character. The insights of "the girl" in the last story were especially compelling.
My only difficulty with this book, and the reason that I bought it after borrowing it from the library, is that I need to read it over again and reexamine the stories' connections (in praise of the author, I have never considered reading another book twice). The book, as a whole, tells the story from present to past; however, each individual story takes place in it's own present time or is a short journey forward in time. At times I found this confusing and often found myself thumbing back through a previous story just to understand their relationship. I would have loved for the author to have spent more time telling about the actual transfer of the painting between each story's characters instead of the keeping the stories so distinctly separate.
On the whole, I would definitely recommend reading this book. It is pleasant and enjoyable and a quick read. A short escape from the present.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written
Review: While I found this novel to be well written, I didn't become emotionally moved by it as a whole. I have a problem when novels don't give me a truly in-depth look at the characters. Because this book pretty much consisted of several short stories based around the theme of a painting, it was a hard for me to become emotionally attached to many of the characters. While I appreciate art, I wouldn't consider myself an art lover. Maybe that's why I had a hard time being attached to an inanimate object as the main character of this novel. I did like a few of the stories. The last story which focused on the creation of the painting was my favorite.
Rating:
Summary: Gem of a Little Book
Review: Susan Vreeland and has written a small and lovely gem of a book. Through 8 vignettes, we travel through the life of a Vermeer painting. From the present day owner, we travel back to meet various owners of this painting, and the affect this painting had on all of them. The stories set in Holland were especially beautifully written and among my favorites. I also greatly enjoyed the depiction of the inspiration for the painting. A little book, but one that truly touched me.
Rating:
Summary: A lovely novel
Review: A lovely novel which traces a painting believed to be a lost masterpiece by Vermeer from its present day owner all the way back to the painting's inception and creation. Vreeland sets the novel up as a series of short stories, each about the painting's respective owners and the spiritual/emotional impact it has on each of their lives. She succeeds in letting each story flow naturally, with imagination and gentle creativity, plucking out a moment in time in the life of each owner and allowing the reader to experience fully the circumstances of their lives, the circumstances within which the painting has comes into their possession, and the direct impact the painting has within that context. It's a daring piece of writing for a relatively inexperienced author (I believe this is her second book) and, to her credit, she handles it quite well, even if some of the vignettes are stronger and more passionate than others.
Rating: 
Summary: DO NOT READ
Review: Okay, I can't even explain the reason why people like this book. Basically the author sets out to show the journey of a paitnign from boring and cliched owner to boring and cliched owner... and tell you the exact meaning of life while she's at it. The only problem is this profound and deep understanding of the meaning of life which Ms. Vreeland is trying to convey to us seems to be something along the lines of "Stop and smell the roses." Oh yeah, and "Love one another" is a big theme too. Anyway, the writing is didactic and sentimental. The fruits of research seem to be to pepper the writing with weird words that you have to research to understand. All in all, it's not worth the time it takes to read.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Amazing!!
Review: I have never seen a Vermeer in my 21 years of existence, But now, I would love to see one and appreciate it. Appreciate art and beauty for what it really is - magnificent and large. That's what this book meant to me. In all its richness - stroking like a paint brush on the canvass of the readers' hearts - Girl in Hyacinth Blue is a winner all the way! The 8 Stories are woven around the imaginary painting of Vermeer and of love not being enough most of the time. From a father's misgivings to Vermeer's Daughter's Passions and so much more defines this 242 page, according to me masterpiece. It could have been any painter, any artist - because Ms. Vreeland's style is so unique and new that she could have given words to any painting. Any picture that speaks a thousand words, that touches the lives of so many, is sometimes so isolated and unappreciated. The girl in the picture, as the story progresses represents beautiful things for different people. It portrays poignancy heightened by the mysteries of giving and losing. Only in the end to seek the truth- beauty for what it really is!
Rating:
Summary: Art as an obsession.
Review: Susan Vreeland 's Girl in Hyacinth Blue is a most unusual novel. Positing the existence of a 36th Vermeer painting, the book explores the power that art can exert upon us to the point of obsession. The book is essentially 8 different yet interrelated short stories about the circumstances of the historical owners of the painting in question, the Girl in Hyacinth Blue. The transition between stories is accomplished through a series of interlocutory vignettes concerning the circumstances of Vermeer's life and the actual creation of the painting. Although I actually like Vermeer's work, I knew next to nothing about his personal life and found these passages quite interesting. On the whole I found the stories quite compelling as well, though there were a few that would have benefited from a bit more development and a more thorough presentation. However, on the whole I found the book quite riveting and entertaining. In the end I was left wishing the painting did in fact exist-even without knowing what it actually looked like--the cover illustration aside-I felt a bit obsessed with it myself. That Vreeland could evoke such a feeling says a lot about the quality of her book.
Rating:
Summary: Quietness and Beauty
Review: Girl in Hyacinth Blue is a quick read -- I read it in one evening -- but, though slight in words, it is dense in images of beauty, sadness, bravado, and love. Each vignette has a different character and mood, yet all of them share a quiet clarity and poignance that draw the reader deeply into the story. True, some of the chapters are better than others (the French woman's affair with the violinist was the weakest), but all are well-worth the reading. It isn't necessary to be familiar with Vermeer's work to enjoy this book, but I strongly recommend looking at his paintings if at all possible. Being familiar with Vermeer's style will make it easier to visualize the well-traveled painting in the book. I can see the painting so well in my mind's eye now that it's almost as real to me as The Milkmaid or Girl With A Pearl Earring. If only it really existed!
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, but not a Vermeer
Review: Though built upon a promising premise, this collection of short tales woven around a single "lost" Vermeer painting gets off to an objectionable start that I found difficult to get over. The suggestion hinted at by the ending of the first story, that somehow the painting itself should be destroyed because it had once been stolen by a Nazi, is unconscionable. A work of art acquires no inherent guilt through the actions of those who handle it; the suggestion is all the more inappropriate given the Nazis' own penchant for destroying art. Otherwise, most of the stories in the book were originally written and published separately, and this perhaps accounts for their somewhat uneven execution. I found the two middle stories, "Morningshine" and "From the Personal Papers of Adriaan Kuypers" to be the most compelling tales in the book, each more for the personal stories they tell than any protagonism of the painting itself.
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