Rating: 
Summary: It grabbed my attention!
Review: This is a must-read for any serious reader. I couldn't put it down at all ~~ and I was in the midst of the move as well! A friend recommended this book to me since I loved A Girl With A Pearl Earring and this book is just as well-written. If you like historical fiction ~~ this book will grab your attention!Sophia, a bored housewife, meets and falls in love with portrait painter, Jan van Loos who also falls in love for the first time with one of his clients. And this story is about their affair and how they plotted to run away from Amsterdam so they can be together. At the heart of this dream is a Semper Augustus bulb ~~ a tulip bulb that would bring in thousands of dollars at the right time ~~ and this book is full of tales of the lovers, her husband, her maid and errant lover. From the first page to the last ~~ it is entertaining with a wicked sense of charm as well. I wouldn't hesitate to read this book ~~ it does sound kind of dull but don't judge the book by it's book cover ~~ it is really one of the best reads I've read this year. It's perfect for summer reading as well ~~ so grab a copy and take it on vacation! 7-7-03
Rating: 
Summary: Poor Cornelis!!
Review: "Tulip Fever" is a book that begs to be reviewed about using phrases like "torrid affair" and "grand deception." Told from the different viewpoints of the characters, the reader quickly realizes everyone is doomed. This is a wholly predictable read -- even the epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter are telling. Also, it has a "Wings Of A Dove" feel to it -- you cannot believe at what lengths these characters will go to in order to get what they want. Ultimately, this is a story that is in the same vein as Tracy Chevalier's "Girl With A Pearl Earring" and Susan Vreeland's "Girl In Hyacinth Blue," the difference being "Tulip Fever" is a much lighter read (I hesitate to label it a "Romance," but...). The descriptions about life in Amsterdam during this time period are interesting and the "tulip fever" that infected so many of its citizens is a clever backdrop -- it mirrors the frenzy of Sophia and Jan's actions brilliantly. This is a great book for those who enjoy historical fiction or are looking for a quick, easy read about a doomed love affair.
Rating: 
Summary: Very readable, but not a must read, unless romance is a must
Review: I have to admit that this little tome speeds by. But it is so much a romance, a soap opera, and so commercial. Read it two years ago and reread it for book discussion group. While I feel better about it, having discussed it with others and having researched the author Moggach, I don't think this is a pivotal book. I do think the movie version will draw a good audience of those who loved "Girl with a Pearl" and who love the current rage of "art history" writing. Interestingly, on Moggach's website, her reason for writing reveals her fascination with a Dutch painting that she bought at an auction, and that painting's inspiration for this book. I rather like Maria more than Sophia,whom I find dreadfully shallow, but HUMAN, I guess. And the irony that befalls the servant Gerrit, a simple man who saves a beast of burden from a ruthless owner, is delicious! So, Jim Broadbent is cast as the cuckold Cornelis? Interesting choice. And Jude Law is sure to draw in the ladies! Ah! Commercial writing. What would we do without it?
Rating:
Summary: It is fall, I need to plant my tulip bulbs...
Review: Last year I read Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. It was my best book of the year, and happily I could keep on reading Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland. I loved both books, and when I saw Tulip Fever at my local book store I knew I had to buy it.
Now, a few day later the book is read from cover to cover, and I have to leave the 17th century world of Amsterdam and all it's inhabitants, paintings, lust, love and intrigues to come back to today's Norway.
Tulip Fever tells different stories, but they are all woven together through the main character Sophia. She is a young woman married to the old and prosperous Cornelis. He deeply loves his young and beautiful wife, and wants a painting to be made of them to take care of her beauty for ever. The painter, young and charming Jan Van Loos falls in love with Sophia, and as the portrait grows so does the passion between Jan and Sophia.
This is a surprisingly story with more secrets and surprises as the chapters unfold.
Every chapter starts with a famous sitat, and Deborah Moggach also uses sitats and famous people in the story. My favorite is when Cornelis and Sophia visits the painter to look at the finished portrait. Cornelis can't take his eyes from the beauty of his wife shown and says: "You have certainly caught her beauty.....The bloom on her cheeks, her freshness and youth like the dew on a peach. Who was it - Karel van Mander? Who, on seeing a still life tried to reach into the canvas and pluck the fruit......not realizing that this particular peach was not to be eaten"
Jan has already picked the fruit in his painting, is she to be eaten? You will have to read the story yourself, and I can promise you that you will not regret it.
Rating:
Summary: 17th Century Soap Opera
Review: "Tulip Fever" was bit too soap-opery for my taste, complete with a faked death and switched-at-birth baby. Even those somewhat over the top touches, however, could have been pulled off if the rest of the plot were less bodice-ripping, swooning-in-her-lover's-arms, torn-between-two-worlds melodramatic. The basic story is, well, basic: Pretty younger wife married to old but rich husband falls in love with talented yet penniless painter. Ah, chuckles Benevolent Yet Oblivious Hubby, kids these days, with their heaving bosoms and trembling lips! Let me invite Hot Young Artist back into my home again and again, since it amuses my Modest and Demure Young Wife so! Let me rejoice when Young Wife suddenly, after years of barrenness, becomes conveniently pregnant! You can see how this becomes tiresome after awhile. Do we sympathize with poor Sophia, stuck in her marriage with a man she doesn't love while her lover awaits her in a seedy apartment in the Jordaan slums? Sure. Can we appreciate her pluck when she devises several implausible, "that's so crazy it just might work" schemes in order to keep up with her mounting indiscretions? OK. Do we want to beat all three (four, if you count the maid who ends up becoming entangled in the whole mess) of them upside the head and tell them to get a clue? You bet. The twist at the end, which brings the whole house of cards crashing down, is the best part of the whole book. I laughed aloud, then felt a little guilty about it, then shrugged and settled back in with a smirk on my face. Schadenfreude is a wonderful thing. Tulip Fever was a very real phenomena in 17th century Holland, akin to the Internet bubble of the 90s. When the market crashed, countless people lost everything. The ups and downs of the tulip craze were, in my opinion, quite exciting and dramatic enough, without turning them into a deus ex machina in a morality play. Too complicated to be beach reading, too bosom-heaving to be serious historical fiction. Too bad.
Rating: 
Summary: Ludicrous and offensive!
Review: As an art historian, I found this book ludicrous and offensive! (...) but THIS book is just a smutty attempt at historical fiction. I couldn't finish, I was too disgusted.
Rating:
Summary: Cold fever
Review: Deborah Moggach's Tulip Fever belongs to the same trend of Tracy Chevalier's Girl with the pearl earring. Period. While Chivalier's work is deep and remarkable, Moggach is interesting and that's it. What first attracted me in the book was the thematic, but in my opinion the execution was poor. I read it very fast-- it is not a bad thing--, but I forgot in the same speed. The story sounded to set up in order to grab readers' attention, rather than the natural flow such a narrative would have. The characters are okay, but sometimes too simplistic. It seems that Moggach could have used all the research she did in a better way, giving more deepen to the novel and characters. Anyway, it is not a bad novel at all, but it is not as good as it could be either. One a lighter note, the beautiful cover worths the whole book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I received this book this past weekend as a present, and what a great one it turned out to be! I finished the book within 2 days, which says a lot about how readable it is. Don't miss out on the story of a young girl unhappily married to an older man in Holland. The lives of the couple and their servant are disrupted when a painter is invited into their home to paint their portrait. There are some surprising plot twists that will keep you guessing. The book also has some great information on tulips, which just happen to be my favorite flowers. I can't recommend this book enough!
Rating:
Summary: This is the second Historical fiction that I read
Review: I also read, Girl with a Pearl and I liked that one, but I do have to say that I enjoy this one more. It was fast moving, short chapters, and a good ending. It kept me focused for the whole story, and I read it in very short time. Who needs a brain draining book to read in the evening? I recommend this book when you need a "break" from the hectic
life that we call "normal".
Rating:
Summary: Boring!
Review: I love historical fiction, but you have to be a fourth grade girl to appreciate this cliche, slow-paced story about a serving girl in love with a painter. The rich, vivid setting is not done justice in the least, as the story mostly takes place in one house, and the historical magnitude of the events of the Golden Age are barely mentioned. It's disappointing overall, and not worth the read.
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