Rating: 
Summary: When it rains, it snows
Review: Growing up in Seattle, I used to fantasize about snowstorms like the one described in this book, the chaos and the peace. I still like the stuff, even though I live in Iowa now and snow is commonplace. One year, the weather forecasts promised us something called "thundersnow," but it never showed up. I was profoundly disappointed.So for me, a book about a debilitating Pacific Northwest snowstorm is inherently exciting, you don't even need all the subplots about murder, wartime internment, forbidden love, real estate, interracial jealousy, and journalism. And surprisingly, despite the fact that the book is mildewy with descriptive passages constantly evoking the not-so cheery environs of a sunlight-deprived fishing and berry-picking community, the book is a nice, quick easy read. What Guterson creates here is a solidly crafted story, with interesting and sympathetic characters and a fully defined history. If he could find enough drama in one of the annual Strawberry Princess pageants, he would be able to generate an equally detailed and emotionally resonant portrait of beauty queen backstabbing. Of course, San Piedro is closely based on a real island, but a convincing author still has to create that consistency. Guterson casually hangs all this depth around the frame of murder mystery, the facts of which are all revealed during the snowbound trial of the accused. The characters are handled with skill, though I think Guterson could have explained more about one character's sudden realization of the "wrongness" of her relationship with the protagonist. The mystery doesn't matter nearly as much as the people and the town, and for the most part, Guterson makes them as real as can be. It doesn't matter who wins the trial -- it's the snow that wins in the end.
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Summary: don't read this book
Review: This is a poorly written, unimaginative book. Under no circumstances should you read it.
Rating:
Summary: A book with a little bit of everything
Review: There's a little bit for everyone here -- a murder trial and mystery with twists and turns, an interracial romance, and a war story. It is an enlightening book about American and Japanese-American relations around the time of WWII and in the years after. The settings -- an island on Washington State, Manzanar, and battles of WWII -- were compelling and informative. The main characters were all likable, and you found yourself rooting for all of them even though their happiest possible outcomes conflict with each other, making it impossible for a fairy-tale ending. Even when you are done with the book you find yourself wondering what happened next in their lives. Overall, a very worthwhile read. (I have never seen the movie of the same name that was based on this book.)
Rating: 
Summary: San Piedro through the eyes of a 15 year old
Review: Provocative. Emotional. Daring. These words don't even begin to describe the many levels of emotion you will experience while reading Sean Gusterson's Snow Falling on Cedars.
To begin with, you shouldn't read this book if you have trouble keeping people and events straight in you head. Trying to write it all out would get you the book all over again. The first character you meet has met an untimely demise. Set in the late 1940's, for the mist part, anti-Japanese mind-sets are still in full swing on the tiny island of San Piedro, off the west coast of Northwestern Washington. The deceased Carl Heine was a typical islander. He had European ancestors that had settled on the island generations ago, which makes him automatically a good man. You also shouldn't read this until you're over 18. This was misplaced in the Young Adult section at my local library.
On San Piedro there are two decent professions for a man to make his fortune on. The first is a strawberry farmer, hiring the local kids and the Canadian Indians every summer to pick their strawberries. At the end of the strawberry season, the mayor of the main island town, Amnity Harbor, will proclaim a weekend "San Piedro Strawberry Festival." Everybody goes in to town to watch their neighbors eat strawberry shortcakes, strawberry pies, and hope their strawberry preserves or jam will win the coveted blue ribbon. It is a typical scene from any summer county fair in the Midwest. In that way, the strawberry farmers of San Piedro are the grain farmers of North Dakota.
But there is the other profession for a San Piedro man to be. He can choose the life of a quiet, peaceful, lonely fisherman. This was the deceased's occupation, but we can see through his choices, which are later revealed in the book, that not every fisher wants to be on the sea. Sometimes the sea chooses its fishers, and could prove jealous. But as a fisherman, at five o' clock every night, except Saturday, a flock of men goes down to the docks. After a thorough checkup, the motors start, the gill nets are dropped, and as we learn, one foggy night, a boat doesn't come back.
So begins the plot of Snow Falling on Cedars. What is revealed is 20 years of forgotten, or in some cases, buried history. A forbidden love is remembered, and the chance to relive it is given up to prove a man's innocence. Tales of justice being taken into the hands of scorned Americans are relived again. A wife becomes a widow, and through all of these people's pains, we see how normal we can look, while we really are complex and very dysfunctional.
San Piedro is a dying island. The fishermen know it, the old-timers know it, and the next generation isn't stopping to look back, but maybe through this coming of age story, they will learn to love this tiny island as much as I did. This story is sweet, touching, riveting, and daring. For a plane ride across the country, or a three-hour train ride, be sure to take along Snow Falling on Cedars and learn to love this kooky cast of characters.
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Summary: Award-Winner Numero Uno, my foot!
Review: I want to ask, who are the ladies and gentlemen to give this novel such high acclaim? Do they ever read good literature? Mr. Guterson writes endlessly - in 460 pages! - about one single blizzard, some scenes in the court room, while most people look out the window, as they try to convict an innocent man of murder. The reader knows this right from start. Pearl Harbor has a lot to do with twisted emotions. You have to give Mr. Guterson credit, that he researched into the background of his novel, meeting simple fishermen and their skiffs. So the language is alright. And yes, many dream of summer with red, lucious strawberries. They look pretty in the white of snow, no doubt! Direct and effective dialoges, which actually are the pepper in any good story-stew, are very scarce. You find a peppercorn here and there in all this milky-pale hash. And 460 pages of it! No thanks!...
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Summary: A Winner
Review: Good story, great setting. This book is very enjoyable and once you're done, view the movie which does justice to the writing by creating great visual connections. I loved the characters and the writing style.
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Summary: A taste sensation!
Review: Hopefully, you'll read this book before the movie ruins it for you. This one is sure to satisfy many readers' tastes. Mystery. Crime. Romance. History. War. Culture. Racial issues. Beauty. Truth. Patriotism. It's got it all.
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Summary: "...suffering, desire, and the precious of nature life."
Review: "The world was incomprehensibly intricate, and yet this forest made a simple sense in her heart that she later felt nowhere else."
David Guterson's novel Snow Falling On Cedars, is the memory of the trial of Kabuo Miyamoto in Amity Harbor, San Piedro, north of Washingon state in 1954. Kabuo has been charged with the murder of local fisherman Carl Heine, who died mysteriously and was found caught in his fishing net. Throughout the course of the trial, memories crawl back to the residents of Amity Harbor, and haunt them with the facts of the past. The strawberry fields, the fairness and trus of friendships, the love between Ishmael Chambers, a white boy, and Hatsue Imada, Kabuo's future wife, and the terrible acts taken against the Japanese citizens during World War II.
Amity Harbor has never seen such a strong snow storm, and when Ishmael Chambers, editor of the local newspaper, "The Island Reivew" searches for Amity Harbors biggest snow storm in history, he discovers a clue that might help to save an innocent man be taken out of custody and returned to his family, and, thus, changing the outcome of the trial.
If you enjoy snuggling reading by a warm fire, this is the book for you. You submerge yourself into a world where the characters haven't seen the ground without snow for days, and the cedar trees are so grown close together, that you can't see through the forest, nor see through the first ten feet. I recomend this book with two thumbs up!! Enjoy!
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Summary: The Way A Story Should Be Told
Review: If you enjoyed Perfect Storm, you will enjoy this book. Guterson writes with a style that can be described as delicious; from the details concerning a autoposy to the tasteful yet sensual descriptions of lovemaking. The rich historic details regarding WWII and the Manzanar camp provided outstanding reading.
The negative reviwes confirm my opinion that many readers are simply lazy as are so many contemporary writers. It is exciting to dip into a book that requires one to think, and yes, got to the dictionary more than once to ascertain the meaning of a
technical term or two. A great read
Rating:
Summary: Is Snow Falling On Cedars all its cracked up to be?
Review: Well,my first impressions of the novel were quite good. The first chapter was interesting and innovative, because the courtcase provided a thrill with mounting tension. However, i found that as the novel went on it got boring, it studied issues about race which is important but then changed to another subject. The flashbacks in this novel were unclear one second you are in the future then you go to the past then it changes immediately to the present. so all in all i think the novel was a bit of a let down, especially after i had seen the film.
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