Rating: 
Summary: Not quite what I expected...
Review: I had heard plenty about the love story of this book before I read it, but what I enjoyed most about it was not directly related to the love story at all. This book is a nice history lesson on the treatment of the Japanese living in the United States during and after World War II. I do recall a cursory mention of this when I was in school, but was astounded by how much I didn't know. As a 20-something American, I find we are taught pretty throroughly about the Nazi treatment of the Jews, but astoundingly little about the American treatment of the Japanese residents of the United States (not too imply that it was the same level of mistreatment). But this is a book review, not a review of the American education system. Aside from the historical perspecive, I found the courtroom drama interesting, and who doesn't like a good detective story? Really, the love story was almost an afterthought for me, but I guess you focus on what you like. Overall, I found this to be a really solid, entertaining novel. Four stars only because some of the passages become a little tedious and repetitive. By the end we understand the protagonist's obsession pretty clearly and don't need page after page continuing to drive home the point.
Rating:
Summary: Colorful but flawed
Review: In general, I liked the imagery and the cuts back and forth from courtroom to past to present. The main problem I had was that the legal argument, after building for awhile, was ignored at the end and left a big hole in the story. The Japanese girl's character was too textbook for my tastes, and uncompelling, as well as way too understanding when Ishmael holds back something that would help her out immensely. Not credible. Nonetheless, a good read.
Rating:
Summary: Feel the Cold
Review: Snow Falling on Cedars is the story of a small community on an island off Washington state, about ten years after the end of WWII. Though the island is isolated, its population is ethnically diverse. The main action of the story, however, takes place between Caucasians and Japanese, as a Japanese man, Kabuo Miyamoto, is standing trial for the murder of a fellow fisherman. Adding to this conflict is the tension between the local newspaper owner, Ishmael Chambers, and his boyhood sweetheart, a Japanese girl named Hatsue, who is now the wife of the accused Kabuo. Snow Falling on Cedars has several themes and elements that readily commend it to be read.
First, the book is a story of how racism affects a small, isolated community. Both Ishmael and Kabuo fought for America during WWII, and both men are crippled by the war, but in different ways: Ishamel by the loss of an arm, Kabuo by the distrust immediately after WWII that whites held against anyone of Japanese descent. The story deals with the unfortunate internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, portraying (evidently accurately) what internees (prisoners) experienced in the camps.
Second, Snow Falling on Cedars is an intense love story, as Ishmael has never resolved his lost romance with Hatsue. As the community's newspaper man, he is in the awkward position of having to deal fairly, as a news man, with the very man who denied him a life with the girl he loves.
Third, the story is well-crafted. The prose is such that the reader feels the cold from the ubiquitous snow that sets the mood for most of the story. One feels the stuffiness of small rooms heated by over-active steam radiators. The reader will feel the frustration of the courtroom drama, as the opposing attorneys seem unable to arrive at the truth. And one wonders if Ishmael will go forth with the evidence that will determine the fate of Kabuo and the possibility of his own relationship with Hatsue. The main narrative technique of the story is the memory, as the narration alternates between past an present (seamlessly, most of the time), and the reader is shown how the horrors of WWII has affected the lives of the ordinary men who went to fight.
Snow Falling on Cedars is a very good read, but I recommend it for more mature readers, as some of the scenes, though tastfully done, are nonetheless unsuitable for young readers. Disturbing and bittersweet, Snow Falling on Cedars forces us to confront racism and to ask ourselves what we would do in the same situation.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent courtroom scenes
Review: I loved Snow Falling on Cedars for its lyrical, engaging prose and its well-developed plot. As a law student, though, I was especially fascinated by the courtroom scenes. Guterson did a great job showing the tensions and struggles of a criminal trial. The scenes where the attorneys were examining witnesses certainly brought the plot forward and revealed a great deal about the personalities of the characters populating the books. These scenes also revealed excellent courtroom technique, though-defense attorney Gudmundsson, for example, skillfully questioned the witness just enough to make his arguments, successfully navigating Irving Younger's commandment to avoid asking "the one question too many."
Rating: 
Summary: A very dull book
Review: Quite why this book has been talked about so much is beyond me. It has to rate amongst the most dull books I've read this year. If a book is going to be this tedious I expect to get some payoff in terms of learning something about humanity but sadly this is not the case. The formula seems to consist of an basic, unintriging detective story which could be told in about 10 pages broken up with page after page of dreary character description. This would be OK if you could care less about any of the characters but you can't. They all seem so mundane. Why do I need to know about the in's and out's and then some of the police deputies reaction to a seeing a corpse. It's not like the author has any real insight into it anyway. I came away with the feeling that the author was trying so hard to be thought of as serious that he just comes up as pretentious. Yes he can write but I question the importance (and definately the interest) of what he has to say.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, enchanting, revealing.
Review: This book is a beautiful story about an island in Washington State, about love, racism, fear, healing. It may be a little slow at first, but it is beautifully written. Most importantly, Guterson is obviously a student of the human heart, and his book is a series of well-drawn, intimate and detailed character portraits. For all these reasons many people have found it memorable and recommend it strongly.
Rating:
Summary: quite good
Review: I think that this was a very good book. I saw the movie first and the movie was hard to follow but the book was amazing. In the book you got to know the characters and in the movie you only saw flashes of the characters emotions. If you havent read this book you definitely should because when you pick it up you will not be able to put it back down.
Rating: 
Summary: Asian woman as a perrenial sex object?
Review: "Cedars" is a lovely book, which reveals the side of American history not yet widely known; e.g., the internment of Japanese Americans during WW II, Alien Land Law and the internment's devastating effects on the Japanese in US at the time. However, as a novel, this book is predicated on the white male protagonist's search for an Asian woman whose racial difference is the prime motive for his sexual obsession. Although it is comforting to see this obsession help to bring forth positive consequence for Asian Americans in this book, the obsession and melancholy the male hero goes through in his fateful relationship with an Asian heroine are problematic sentiments in the eyes of a person from contemporary US society wherein various ethnic and racial differences become reduced to sexual innuendoes (especially in regard to Asian women). This sexualization of race has dangerous implications in a society saturated by hierarchies of race, class, and sex.
Rating:
Summary: I Object!
Review: While there are many gems of description and observation in this novel, I could not help continually asking myself as I read, "what's all the hype about?" To begin, the amount of detail and unwieldy description left me gasping for air. A little bit of spare prose would do wonders in this book. Most annoying to me is how the author lacks even the most rudimentary knowledge of how a courtroom operates and, more specifically, how the rules of evidence work. I'll grant him some dramatic license, but if he is going to write a book the central vehicle of which is courtroom testimony, he ought to get some clue about how that process actually works. For example, lawyers do not recite long summaries of previous testimony from memory, they do not get to ask leading questions of their own witnesses, and they do not get to go on and on and on in narrative soliloquy when--ostensibly--asking a question. And you know what else? They occasionally object! Alas, not in David Guterson's world. With his complete failure to render the courtroom dialogue with even a hint of accuracy, the author lost much credibility and I found myself reading the rest of the book looking for errors, rather than floating the vivid and continuous dream that might have been.
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT FILM--THE BOOK IS EVEN BETTER
Review: As the author of a novel in its initial release that deals with multicultural issues in contemporary Southern California, I have long been fascinated by David Guterson's SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS. While the novel is disguised as a crime fiction work, it is much, much, much more. It opens in a courtroom and involves a murder trial. There is an unsolved mystery at the heart of the story. It tackles the issue of racism and the sad chapter of American history in which loyal Americans were interned simply because of their ethnic heritage. Additionally, the novel deals with the concepts of loyalty and honor as felt by the leading characters. SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS is also a love story (complete with a triangle), but most of all Guterson's writing captures the atmosphere of his story's time and place with perfection. SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS is one of the strongest books written in the last quarter-century.
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