This is not an exciting, thrill-a-minute, real page-turner type of book. It is, in a word, interesting. I like both strawberries and winter, so I enjoyed much of the description. The characters, while realistically portrayed, did not evoke much sympathy in me, and while I generally understand why the reporter was given so much backstory, it did not really strike me as all that relevant. So if the post-WWII world of Japanese Americans in a remote island off the coast of Washington state interests you, you may like this book. If not, you would probably be bored to tears. ( )

I read sentences over and over. This is a wonderfully written book, the language sonorous, impressive in the range and depth of detail on everything that makes up life on an island off the coast of Washington. Having visited a similarly located island, Haida Gwaii (The Queen Charlotte Islands) off the west coast of Canada, I found the descriptions of landscape and the way of life especially riveting. I was also impressed with the vivid character sketches of a panorama of minor characters. Even walk-ons who barely have a word merit a name, first and last, something about appearance, ability, personality. The weaving of the courtroom drama and scenes from earlier in the lives of all the participants is done incredibly skillfully.

My only quibble with this book is at the end. I felt that it was winding up, with tense suspense, toward a sad end. I didn't want that ending, but it felt inevitable and right given everything that came before it. But toward the end, with rapid fire speed, a happy ending was pulled out of a hat, and for me it wasn't convincing and didn't have the power of the rest of the book. It brought forward for me where the book was not as strong as the rest. The love triangle never quite struck me as real.

But that aside, this book has so much beauty in its language, from landscape to character descriptions. The courtroom scenes are convincing. The structure amazing. The range of it marvelous: the way it captures a time, the fishing and strawberry farming, social structure, Japanese internment camp, one of the best war scenes I've ever read.

David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars is as riveting as its title implies. It contains lots of snow. It contains lots of cedar trees. It is filled with symbolism, rich descriptions of the natural world, gently explored themes and patiently rendered characters. As beautiful as an island snowfall is, however, no sane person would stand and watch one for hours on end – and this, it seems, is what Guterson expects his readers to do. With a measured style that borders dangerously on monotony, he insists upon his audience wading through page after page of detail and description, offering little in return for their efforts but the consistently high quality of his language. Any suspense or pace which might have accompanied this murder mystery are utterly drained. By halfway through the novel, the reader will have lost any desire to know who actually killed Carl Heine.

Perhaps if this book had been three hundred pages or less, it would have been acceptable. Stretched as they are, however, over four hundred densely-packed pages, the fruits of Guterson's labour are soured by a feeling of self-indulgence, and eventually wither from remaining too long on the vine. For four hundred pages, Guterson takes his reader for granted, and the result is a wholly unsatisfying epic; vivid enough, but easily forgettable.

As the reader tires, so do many of Guterson's ideas and techniques. His exploration of racism covers little ground not already trod by Harper Lee in To Kill a Mockingbird. Even the character of Judge Lew Fielding seems to have been cloned (with a measure of unconvincing tweaking) from Lee's judge, John Taylor. The courtroom theatrics, while they may be the most readable parts of the book, are annoyingly incongruous; they would feel much more at home in a John Grisham novel than in Guterson's scrupulously realistic world. The final chapter, while preserving that realism, manages to be both insubstantial and anticlimactic, foregoing any real resolution in favour of a vaguely uplifting moral.

Who has time for Snow Falling on Cedars? Certainly not me, and probably not you, either. If there truly is a moral to this story, it is this: nothing ruins good writing like too much good writing. ( )

Listening to the unabridged version. Almost did not get through the first CD. Tedious courtroom dialog. But now, I'm hooked. It is the story that is compelling not so much the telling of it. That is annoying to me. I am incredibly sucked into the story and some of the characters, as in life. I want to be there. I feel I am there at times. I sit and listen in my garage letting the car battery keep it going. Not an easy read nor easy to listen to the telling but a must for the TBR pile. ( )

Paula