A review by allieeveryday
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

3.0

I've owned this one for an insanely long time and never read it because ... well, both the cover and the title are super boring and neither are really representative of the content within. While it centers on a murder trial, its heart is much more of a character study of the people who lived on San Piedro Island in the 1950s, and the prejudices they hold against the Japanese immigrants that lived on the island before (and after) World War II. It's slow and languid and descriptive (perhaps a tad overly so), and it's got some super irritating moments of sexist micro aggression -- rankling me the most: 1) a woman was described as "31 and still graceful," and 2) a main character's mother's "face looked bland and old with no mascara, for which she asked [her son's] forgiveness," which was irrelevant, and also what?? -- but I still found the characters and the trial compelling enough to keep going. I actually enjoyed it more than this review is letting on, but those irritations are keeping me from rating it higher.