What readers think of Snow Falling On Cedars, plus links to write your own review.

Okay book. Doesn't focus on a lot of the main points being made in the novel. I thought the book was too straight forward and didn't give the reader ample opportunity to figure out all the five questions like who, what, where, when, and why. I'm sure David Guterson is an extremely talented author, but he should shift back and forth with the storyline to give the reader a chance to absorb all the information.

This book was good but it dragged on in the middle. I liked the movie better than the book. This book has been made into a movie starting Ethan Hawke and is quite good. The movie stayed true to the book.

Matthew sat down on his macintosh style wooden chair in the front room of his grey suburban town house, the gas fire with it's small metal grill illuminated the room with a warm, rich light and he pulled a thick novel from his patched school bag and tried very hard, his fore-head knotted with concentration and with small streams of sweat trickling down past his long eyelashes, to find quotes for his essay in such a long-winded paperback novel as Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Gutterson who had grown up on a............ bla bla bla you get the picture.

I thought some of the parts got boring. He went on and on about one certain subject, but didn't tell about another.

I wanted so to enjoy this book if only because it has such an evocative title. But I’m going nuts trying to read it. mind you I am used to reading long German sentences where I sometime forgot what it was going on by the time I got to the verb! Guterson piles on the adjectives, commas and more description. I want to take a red ink pen to the text. Now I find Hemingway too brief, enjoyed Joseph Conrad’s grasp of the language and do appreciative a descriptive phrase. But I am starting to skip over sections of this book. I made it to page 45 and decided life is too short for overuse of adjectives and commas. Was 1995 so long ago? I wonder if many of the reviewers would hold the book in such high esteem today.

I found this book extremely boring!!!! Although I can give it props because it described everything in the book in a very detailed manner. I had to read it for a project and the beginning of the book is drastically boring. The love story within the book is the only part that I found very interesting . It was a beautiful and emotional part. Guterson did not have to describe the the intercourse parts so vividly though I do recommend this book if you are interested in the court room setting I do not recommend if you don't like long books and books that aren't interesting from the beginning.

I found this book dire, I have read it more than three times now and contrary to some others I found the weight of detail has not drawn me in to the complexity of his prose. Some critics have had the audacity to state Gutterson has a clipped and concise prose style. I feel that this long winded story of half-hearted deceit and prejudiced law suits is approaching unreadable. Gutterson presents frailty as something to respect and the submission of women into unfulfilled lives, (Hatsue's submission to Kabou to gain the strawberry farm she wants and does not gain for example, her life is also reflected in her mothers situation; travelling to America to find she had married a pauper) as second to the slight and past prejudice against Japanese culture.

The enclosed island community is a poor attempt to create a cross section of community and to explore prejudice and human nature in a confined area. Unfortunately i feel Gutterson fails in this and creates a confined novel which cannot expand to find any sort of parallel with actual society.

Responding to Stephanie's comment, "This story is a murder mystery/love story/war story/everything story", I believe that had Gutterson persisted in one vein and focused highly in Ishmael's struggle or the court scenes alone the book would have been more succesful. There are some astonishing comments made which show potential in his work, but, this novel is far to confused and indeed long-winded.

The book was very boring and long. It dosen't hold your attention. Had to read it for class.