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Summary: This guy can write!
Review: Nothing fancy here, just an exceptional story told very well. Every character is described clearly and sympathetically, although you may find yourself wanting to wring a neck or two. It left me wanting to find more of Guterson's work.
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Summary: love and murder in world war two
Review: I personally loved this book and would recomend it for many reasons. One reason is this book really taught me about the war and put it into a child's point of view, something i could understand. This story takes place on san peidro island, just north or puget sound. It is during the time of world war two about 1941. Chaos was everywhere around the island. The night before, a fisherman named Carl Hein was murdered and everyone expected another local fisherman Kabu Mayamoto to be the murderer. Throughout this book the trial for his murder is proceeding and many things are going through different peoples minds. A local reporter Ishmael Chambers is very confused because when he was younger he fell in love with a japenese girl named Hastu who is now married to Kabu and he is still in love with her. Read this book to find out what happens to their love story and the trial for Carls death. I really enjoyed this book. It was intersting and joined two of my favorite topics for reeading romance and murder stories. This was a serious book on an adult level and touched on many important topics we face in todays sociaty.
Rating: 
Summary: Unremarkable
Review: I bought this book to discover what all the fuss was about... and finished it without ever finding out. I kept waiting for it to get interesting but it never did. I didn't find any of the characters very beliveable or unique; they all struck me as one-dimentional, stereotyped and contrived. Overall I found the book entirely forgetable and underwhelming.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredibly Rich and Multi-Layered
Review: Snow Falling on Cedars is a rich, atmospheric, multi-layered book. The plot centers on a doomed love and a murder trial a decade later. The young lovers are Ishmael Chambers, son of the local newspaper editor in a small town in the Pacific Northwest and Hatsue Miyamoto, the daughter of Japanese-Americans and the wife of the man accused of murder.Ishmael and Hatsue meet during the time of Pearl Harbor, and, although they do love each other, we know their love is doomed from the start. Although Ishmael's father runs editorials proclaiming, "These people are our neighbors," emotions run against anyone of Japanese descent during this time in American history and the government eventually seizes their property and detains them in internment camps. A decade passes and Ishmael, himself, now sadly missing one arm, is editor of the paper and covering a sensational murder trial at which Hatuse's husband, Kazuo, whom she married in one of the camps, is the defendant. Is Snow Falling on Cedars is crime story or is it a romance? It is both and it is neither and it is so much more. It is an incredibly complex novel that unfolds quietly and gradually in flashbacks, dreams, half-understood events and flashes of memory, all rendered in a variety of styles each suited to the specific thing it reveals. All of this feels quite natural, though, and nothing comes off as artificial or contrived. Snow Falling on Cedars is a novel in which the sense of place is crucial. This novel has to take place where it does and Guterson is very good at entwining his story in the landscape of the tress, the clouds and the darkening sky, the wetness and the shadows, the rain and the snow. Rarely does a book come along in which place plays so great a role in the narrative. The biggest weakness in Snow Falling on Cedars is in the development of the character of Kazuo. We get to know him through Ishmael's eyes and so he remains emotionally distant, not quite cardboard cut-out, but not quite real, either. If Snow Falling on Cedars has one fault that makes it a four-star book rather than a five-star, it is lack of emotional engagement. Although the characters, with the possible exception of Kazuo, are fully-realized, we just never learn enough about each one's psyche to have true empathy with their plight. Guterson is a very good writer but he seems to want to keep us at arm's length. We feel as though this were someone else's story, not one we can become a part of. Perhaps Guterson wants it that way in an attempt to preserve the book's quiet sense of dignity. Snow Falling on Cedars is a very good book, better than most. It is just not one that most people will remember for years and years to come.
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Summary: The words fall gently...
Review: 35 years ago, when I was a child, I read Gallico's "Snow Goose". It is a story which remains vivid in my mind, a glistening pearl shining amond the pebbles. It is much the same with "Snow Falling on Cedars". One can only marvel at Guterson. He has chosen each word with exquisite care, gently and lovingly placing it into the sentence so that it almost shouts for joy that it is in absolutely the right place. It can be argued that writing is a craft, much like brick-laying. A mis-placed brick in a wall stands out like the proverbial canine testes: a badly placed word will do the same. The majority of popular authors are skilled craftsmen, making each word count. Guterson, however, takes writing to another plane. Each sentence is water to a thirsty man. The sum of each paragraph is equal to more than its parts. He is as far removed from the craft of writing as Michelangelo was from the craft of quarrying. I feel that, should Guterson ever choose, he could write a VCR or DVD instruiction manual and not only make it comprehensible, but also make it elegant. When you read the book - for read it you must - you will be entranced by the story, and the characters' moral dilemmas, and all-too-human foibles, fears, and frustrations. But mostly you will be warmed by the words. You will find yourself returning to the book time and again, simply for the pleasure of a perfect phrase, a sublime sentence. This is what writing should be, and seldom is. This is what reading can be. Let us rejoice in it.
Rating: 
Summary: morally flaccid
Review: It is 1954 on San Piedro Island in Puget Sound. Hatsue Miyamoto stands accused of killing Carl Heine, Jr., the son of Etta Heine, who essentially stole the land that the Miyamoto's were about to finish buying before they were shipped to the Manzanar concentration camp in 1942. Carl, Jr. was found in his own fishing net, drowned and with his skull stove in, and Miyamoto's was the closest boat. In addition, Carl's blood is on Miyamoto's gaff, one of his lines is found tied to a cleat on Miyamoto's boat and Miyamoto refuses to explain these anomalies. As the trial unfolds, local newspaper editor Ishmael Chambers is flooded with memories. He had a secret love affair with the young Japanese girl who later married Miyamoto and he lost an arm fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific. Now it appears that he may be the only thing that stands between Miyamoto and a guilty verdict. There is really no way to avoid the fact that only the Jim Crow laws compare to the Internment of the Japanese during World War II as the low point for civil rights in this country. Even Slavery and the annihilation of the Indians made sense within the context in which they occurred. But the rounding up of American citizens, in 1942 under the provisions of Executive Order 9066, simply because of their race, was genuinely despicable. And it is especially important to recall that it was the act of two of the deities of 20th century American Liberalism--FDR and Earl Warren. This is instructive both for what it tells us about the men, that just like Bull Connor or Lester Maddox they placed their own political interests ahead of human rights, as well as for what it tells us about the terror a democracy is capable of imposing. It is significant to note that the Japanese were rounded up only in states where they wielded little political power. Hawaii, which had actually been attacked and where they were a much larger portion of the population, made no effort to intern it's population, in no small part, because they represented a political force to be reckoned with later. So how can you not fall prostrate and worshipful before this oh so earnest tale of racism in the Pacific Northwest in the 40's and 50's? How about, because the author stacks the deck so badly on one side that the book is devoid of even the semblance of dramatic tension. Here's the first sentence of the novel: The accused man, Kabuo Miyamoto, sat proudly upright with a rigid grace, his palms placed softly on the defendant's table--the posture of a man who has detached himself insofar as possible at his own trial. From this unambiguous beginning, Miyamoto is subsequently cloaked in ever increasing layers of nobility, until the very concept that he could have committed this crime is almost laughable. So we're not exactly engulfed in a mystery here. Does the trial tell us something about racism? Well, no. Given the excruciatingly contrived set up of the evidence in Carl, Jr's death, it would have been irresponsible not to try Miyamoto for the murder. Is the process itself corrupted by bigotry? Hardly. Judge, prosecutor and defense attorney all seem trapped in a trial they don't really believe in. So what's the point? In one of the interviews below, Guterson claims that he was influenced by Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. However, when Lee wrote her book it was an act of political courage for a Southern woman to honestly portray the racist Southern justice system. And Atticus Finch put himself, his children and his legal practice at risk in order to defend an unjustly accused black man. No character here is taking similar risks and Guterson is so risk averse that he nearly beatifies his Japanese american characters. There is really no similarity between the two books and Guterson does not deserve to be compared to Lee. The end result is the literary equivalent of The Shawshank Redemption. Everything in the book is predictable from the moment you read the dust jacket. The only interest remaining is the forlorn hope that you're wrong and there's some plot twist coming. Moreover, it is a sorry statement on the state of our public morality that critics have praised the book for the quality of the moral choice that Ishmael finally makes. Where I come from, you don't accrue much spiritual credit for revealing the facts that clear an innocent man, even if you did want him out of the way so you could shtup his wife. It's not a bad book. It has some redeeming qualities, not least of which is reminding our historically challenged society about the internment of innocent Japanese citizens during the War. But it is just so intellectually lazy and morally flaccid that it's hard to recommend it. GRADE: C-
Rating:
Summary: A very important book
Review: This was not just a wonderful book, but an important one. The fact that America imprisoned Japanese-Americans during WWII is a fact that is largely ignored in our history books. So many people have no idea this ever happened or that internment camps ever existed in America. Snow Falling on Cedars sheds light on the horrific condtions in American camps such as Manzanar. Aside from the accurate and compelling historical side of the novel, this book also is a wonderful story of love, honor, family and prejudice. This book covered many important themes in very engrossing way. I loved this book and I learned a lot from it.
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Summary: Masterful mood piece
Review: This story takes place in an interesting location, on one of the San Juan Islands in Washington. I live in California, but I've travelled a lot in this area, having visited over 20 of the San Juans and Canadian Gulf islands in the Georgia Strait and the Strait of San Juan de Fuca. This is one of my favorite places in the world, and when I noticed the book's story takes place in this fascinating area, I bought it without much thought. I was rewarded with an extremely well written and poignant story about a murder mystery that takes place against the backdrop of this beautiful region of peaceful and wooded islands. Guterson has a fine ability to evoke what is special about the land and people of this area, beautifully evoking the moods of this little island paradise. A masterful mood piece, but with an interesting plot and story thrown in as well. Definitely worth your time and money.
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Summary: FANTASTIC
Review: Snow Falling on Cedars is probably the best book I've ever read. I read the book about 2 years ago and found it fantastic. I was scouring for some historical fiction romance and the book came up...interesting enough, I found it to be an interracial romance, which made me want to read the book even more. The thought of this happening to people in those times makes me feel sad because of all the racial tensions back then. But the book made me cry and laugh...one I couldn't put down...
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Summary: Love with in a Trial
Review: Snow Falling on Cedars is one of the best novels I've ever read: romance, mystery, forgiveness, betrayal, and fighting. Guterson is a very talented writer. You can imagine everything so perfectly. I especially loved how he writes the ending. He gives the story a little twist. He puts the fate of the defendant's life on his wife's first love. This is definitely a book, that every page you turn you're in for a new surprise. I recommend this to readers who love to be challenged. You have to follow this book closely to see how every little detail ties in together. I enjoyed being challenged when reading this book, and i hope you will, too.
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