Rating: 
Summary: Solid historical fiction
Review: Prior to "Hawaii", I've been introduced to the author's style in "The Source" and "Poland". Generally speaking, it's rather engaging and undoubtedly vivid. Thus, the reader may consume one of his works with unprecedented ease. However, that alone does not constitute a worthy novel. Mr. Michener's objective is clear - to create a aura of the place or people he is documenting. That is where "Poland" fails to deliver. "Hawaii", however, does. Though by no means a consummate novel, I feel it is worth the read, and educationally sound. I do wish he had put a small "fact/fiction" prologue to discriminate between what exactly is true and not (much like in his later works). No matter though, because this sweeping account exudes Michener's (and to a great degree the reader's) romantic facination with the islands.
Rating: 
Summary: Way Too Long For Me
Review: Wow, this is the biggest book I have read in a long time. I just did not have the stamina for it. I read the book on a trip to Hawaii. I will say it did give a good feel for the place and the history of it. But it was just way too long with what I fealt was too much detail in many parts. Also I found it impossible to keep track of the characters. There are 5 missionary families that intermarry and use last names for first names. I could not keep Hoxforth Hale straight from Hale Hoxforth. (Yes I know there were family trees in the back, but I could not spend my whole time flipping back and forth). So if you are going to Hawaii or just interested in the place and you have lots of time and patience this book may be for you. But for me, I would prefer something shorter.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the greatest books of this century.
Review: This epic story by Michener is undoubtedly one of the best works of our century. It is filled with over 1000 pages of great writing, you wont be able to put it down!
Rating:
Summary: History, anthropology and romance rolled up in one
Review: This novel has so many different parts to it that it is hard to describe it succintly. First, there are the two traditional aspects present in all Michener novels, history and romance, intertwined to give the reader first hand knowledge of what history felt like to the people enacting it and the bystanders. In Hawaii, Michener continues this tradition by creating some of his most memorable characters and driving the reader to understand them and their interactions with each other. I believe the anthropological aspect of this novel makes it superior to other Michener novels that focus simply on history and romance. We see vividly the interactions between missionaries brought to convert the natives and the Hawaiian people; it is often humorous, sarcastic, and even sad. Overall, Michener readers will enjoy this one as a quintessential Michener book. Non readers, or new inductees, may also enjoy the anthropological side of this book, as it not only explores the history of the people, but analyzes in depth the changes that face them until modern days.
Rating: 
Summary: From a bump in the ocean floor to Pearl Harbor
Review: First read as an adolescent. I was fascinated by Michener's development of the islands from a geographical phenomenon to our fiftieth state. I found the western colonization accounts especially fascinating. 1
Rating:
Summary: An All-Time Favorite Of Mine
Review: My mother and my aunt read this book when it first came out and discussed it endlessly. Out of curiosity, I started reading it and became so immersed in it, I faked being sick so I could stay home from school to finish reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Enchanting!
Review: I LOVE this book! I am a huge fan of the islands, and often get "homesick" and heartsick for the islands between vacations. This book brings me back there, it is absolutely my most favorite book and I have worn out 2 copies already.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Book
Review: Another epic, another success. James Michiner never failed to to satisfy my thirst for knowledge.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Story
Review: Compelling characters, fabulous story, and amazing command of several time periods makes this one of the best novels ever printed.
Rating:
Summary: Melodramatic Travelogue
Review: You've gotta wonder about a guy who goes out of his way to dream up one word titles. It's an affectation, like lip gloss or tassels. So humdrum it's supposed to be clever. Michener's books are like his titles: affectations. And for titles so pithy, his books sure are looong. They are melodramatic travelogues, trying to pass off minutiae and exotic venues for epic drama. Unfortunately, they are as laborious as a family slide show. Of interest to the travel hound, but an ordeal to the poor guest forced to endure the whole presentation. We squirm, stifle yawns and sit the thing out for courtesy's sake more than anything else. This book tries to be an epic by copying the trappings of the great works. It gallops over exotic geographies and spans historical if not geological time. War and Peace in grass skirts. Its problem is that it copies the time and space of the great works while foregoing both their dramatic passion and their majestic language. Michener is a pedestrian writer, and his workmanlike phrasing just doesn't pass muster for the job that needs doing. The book has its good points. It is well researched and historically accurate. It is also filled with well developed, if stereotypical characters. There is the noble savage, the chauvinistic missionary, the saintly wife, the virile entrepreneur, the Rock-of-Gibraltar peasant woman, etc. On the face of it, this book has everything it takes to be a good read: fabulous setting, sweeping plot, varied cast of characters, some worthy and significant themes. What it lacks is a soul. There's nothing here that speaks to the human condition, nothing that cuts to the very nub of things. There's no point to the suffering, except as a litany to suffering itself. We are supposed to identify with the aboriginal Hawaiians, then the Chinese, then the Japanese, not because they endured and overcame, nor because their spirit shone in the darkest hour, but because they were oppressed and exploited by often well meaning whites. Sorry, but after the horrors of slavery, holocaust, gulags and killing fields, suffering takes on a dimension that Michener's talent is simply not equal to. By diminishing the epic scale and ignoring the personal scale, Hawaii lands in the worst possible place: the middling zone of mediocrity. If the reader wishes to experience a dramatic epic of the finest sort, then try the aforementioned War and Peace, or Les Miserables. Both books tie the sweep and grandeur of an epochal time and place to the physical and spiritual struggles of one man. They give the reader a soul to cling to and, in doing so, make the suffering both personal and real. They were also written by literary geniuses up to the task of imbuing their creations with unforgettable prose, vital characters and most of all, a penetrating vision that strikes to the very heart of life; things that Hawaii does not even try to deliver.
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