Rating: 
Summary: One of the best literary heroines but slow in parts
Review: This literary mystery, set partly in Copenhagen and partly in Greenland, distinguishes itself from the gamut of mysteries that flood bookstores these days. Smilla, a woman of partial Greenlandic origin, is fascinating, complex, and has a low tolerance for the bureaucracy with which she constantly battles. Her investigation into the death of her young neighbour stems from the strong connection and devotion she felt for the boy. When Isiah turns up dead at the apartment building - he has seemingly fallen from the roof - Smilla instantly senses foul play. Her connection to and knowledge of snow remains a central component to the plot. Smilla's relationship with a reclusive neighbour has more implications than she initially believes which adds to the intrigue. The one weakness of the novel is its tendency to drag, especially in the middle segments of the book. Hoeg sometimes dives too extensively into detail and these technical forays tend to weaken the pace of the novel. All in all, one of the best mysteries around these days. A book that will clearly appeal to enthusiasts of suspense as well as to those who enjoy well-written, character-driven literature.
Rating:
Summary: Heroine has the coldest heart in the book
Review: Smilla Jasperson is unmarried and facing the prosepct of growing old alone in Copehagen, matching her remoteness from her beloved Greenland with a similar attitude towards the rest of humanity. Only a small inuit boy stirs up Smilla's smoldering self hatred and forces her to look back towards the frozen Greenland of her birth. Young Isiah is meant to mirror Smila at the age before her detachment from home became permanent, and he she becomes the mother figure his own drunken and unemployed mother is not. When the boy dies, Smilla barely hesitates to suspect murder, not only because of her love for him but because he is her only connection to the rest of humanity. Her search puts her in conflict with Copenhagen's police who would like to put closure on the case, and with the boy's father's employer - a large mining company making periodic surveys to Greenland. It also forces her towards her father, a prominent Danish doctor and the man she hates the most.Hoeg has created less a mystery than a complex drama in which the heroine is the most dispassionate charachter. Nothing will bring back Isiah, and Hoeg resists the urge to turn Smilla's antagonists into oppressive and unsympathetic goliath figures. While Smilla never attracts sympathy or reader identification, Hoeg's ecxploration saves her from becoming a cypher. The plot itself, though, when forced to reveal itself, is unsatisfying and doesn't seem to do its protagonist or the prose any justice. The day after you've finished the last page, you've forgotten the climax. But you'll still be shivering.
Rating:
Summary: I have absolutely no interest in thrillers...
Review: and this book is uneven indeed. However, as a refugee and a person who detests most conventions, I feel respect and understanding for Smilla. This book has helped me to learn more about alienation and to evaluate once more my 10 years of exile. In short, it has given me courage...and every now and then made me smile over myself and everybody else.
Rating:
Summary: Hoeg is on fire.
Review: Peter Hoeg is an amazing storyteller of the modern day. He wwraps you into it with intriguing characters (even the villans are interesting) and heavyweight concepts. Smilla's is his most well-known work, and probably his strongest for general audiences. I read this coming off of Borderliners though, and thee up-in-the-air ending among a few other things made it seem diminished comparably. But still one of the best out there these days. I recommend this as an introduction to Hoeg. (Above all, do not begin with History of Danish Dreams!)
Rating: 
Summary: Smilla's Glacial Plot
Review: The book "Smilla's Sense Of Snow"'s plotline moves as slowly as a glacier. The first two hundred pages of this book is almost nothing more than conversations between characters - no real action whatsoever. The protagonist, Smilla Jasperson, is one of the worst female characters I have read about! Not only is she cynical and arrogant, she is also nosy, childish, and a liar. The last 250 pages are somewhat better, but the plot unfolds into some strange attempt at sci-fi (that doesn't work). I think the last words of this book pretty much describe the entire content: "there is no resolution". (And just because a review is negative, it doesn't mean it's not helpful. Take my advice: this novel is definitely not worth reading. It's quite a bore.)
Rating: 
Summary: What's the danish for ( )?
Review: "Unputdownable!", "great!","yahoo!" or whatever they put on the cover, plus theoptimistic feeling that a book recommended by someone I really like couldn't be all that bad... that's what it took me to read the book till its utterly disappointing end. Not that the rest is very good either. It starts rather nicely with a mysterious enough description of a cold morning in Copenhagen; then there's the brooding heroine, miss Smila herself, I mean in real life I quite like depressive people, but Smila's not depressive she's just pathologically egotistical. Then there's plenty more, but the further it goes the more difficult it becomes to give a damn about what's going to happen next or about who miss Smila will stab and get away with (on a ship full of vilains!)in the following chapter. As Mr Hoeg kindly reminds us in the last sentence of the book (I don't think I'm spoiling anything here): "there is no conclusion". So here we are, having struggled through endless descriptions of extraordinary types: you know the world-famous anesthesist whose house in Copenhagen is the size of a 9-hole golaf course, the 30-something alcoholic who, we are supposed to believe, looks like he's 14 and dived with the Danish marines during his military service, the scientist who chain-smokes Romeo y Julieta havanas in his lab, the oh-so-pious retired executive... just to find out that there's something in the snow on an island that could wipe out the whole of mankind, but, you know, the author having already written 300 pages can't be bothered to make this bit of the story relevant. Books can be hard to put down for a number of reasons, let's check out: dazzling prose (NO); gripping story (mmh); great characters (NO); horrible characters whose death one sadistically expects right at the end (YES!) but then again we're let down: no-one smothers Smila Jaspersen to death as she deserves to be. END
Rating: 
Summary: Captivating and stunning
Review: "Smilla's Sense of Snow" is one of my favorite novels of all time. Quite ironic, considering that I almost didn't read it because the Julia Ormond-movie almost turned me away from it completely. The narrator, Smilla, is, to be blunt, obnoxious, arrogant, mean-spirited, and emotionally damaged. But she also makes for an intriguing guide through the novel. She's very interesting, the way Holden Caulfield is interesting. The plot of the novel begins with Smilla's attempts to unravel the mysterious death of a young boy who lived in the same apartment building. The boy supposedly fell off the roof to his death, but by examining the snow tracks -- Smilla's sense of snow -- she determines that he didn't fall. Long before Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" came around, "Smilla's Sense of Snow" presented a scientifically-nerdy view of the thriller, packed with all kinds of trivia and even a math equation relating to the density of snow. I recommended this book to three of my co-workers, all of whom raved about it as much as I did. Unfortunately, I didn't find "Borderliners" to be anywhere near the same level. Hoeg may be a one-hit wonder, but that hit is a bull's eye.
Rating: 
Summary: Win a Date With Smilla
Review: If you always wanted to read the encyclopedia all the way through but never thought you had the time, Smilla is the woman for you. She knows something about everything, and don't think for a minute that she won't tell you. This lady has more adventures than you can shake a stick at, PLUS she has a nasty habit of pinching, grabbing and inserting things where they may not belong. I don't think I'm the only one who got an X-Filesish feel from this book, especially at the end. I cheated and listened to Smilla on audiotape, but Alyssa Bresnahan's performance is worth checking out if you have 17.75 hours of spare time or you can listen at work like me.
Rating:
Summary: The stillborn hybrid.
Review: I see Mr.Hoeg rather vividly as a brooding northerner who could benefit from a lot more sunshine and a smile or two. He treasures his intellectual insights too much and would be very displeased if someone calls them halfbaked. To edit his prose for Peter Hoeg is like carving his own live body with a knife. Clarity and restraint are not among his virtues. His earlier work, pretentiously named The History Of Danish Dreams was published in English after Smilla's success and confirmed my suspicions. It seems that Mr.Hoeg was disappointed with the public's reaction to that masterpiece and infuriated that someone may like his work less than he does. It's a fact that any writer sees in his book the merits of far grander scale than these accesible to a reader. To evaluate the result the reasonable writer makes that adjustment rather routinely but that's not the case with Peter Hoeg - he is so preoccupied with his Intellectualism and Eloquence. Writing Smilla he planned to give public what it wants. Peter Hoeg is rather sarcastic to the requirements of commercially successful fiction. That's why well into last hundreds pages the plot looks more and more like a parody - who can take seriously that stupid asteroid! Smilla is Mr.Hoeg himself. He is so self-centered that in his next novel - Borderliners - the writer did not bother to give a different name to his new incarnation - the main character is called Peter Hoeg, plain and simple. Ms. Smilla is a socially awkward type, she is a specialist in something of a very limited interest - the structure of snow. Bored with herself, exhausted by these incessant flashbacks, Smilla seeks adventure. Just like her erudite creator, who made a decision to venture in the unfamiliar terrain of mass literature, Smilla goes on a quest that must stop the buzzing in her head and make something happen. There are the key ingredients of mass literature - the action, the mystery, the exotic. Smilla is a potentially reach heiress, The Mechanic is a former Special Forces hunk - the central figure in 75% of mass market fare. There are corrupt cops, money-crazed villains and quite a few good people, who helped the dark forces unwittingly and now are eager to repent. The gloomy streets of northern city see killings, blackmail and burning alive. Then the ship sails on to the imminent showdown. All that is watered down by brooding, flashbacks, ethnography. Is it a "serious" literature or a thriller? None of these. I do not think that thriller consumers are happy with the knowledge that there are 673 words for snow in the Innuit language and other equally captivating bits of information. And the serious reader will find a lot of happenings and characters ridiculous. I was lured by a promising title, read the whole book, that looked for the first third like the literature I normally like, but well into the last hundred pages my appreciation turned to contempt and I was totally devastated by the ultimately stupid finale.
Rating:
Summary: If the book is anything like the movie it's worth it
Review: I haven't read the book yet but I did manage to watch the movie that was made for Bravo! It was VERY good and was very well portrayed. I often times am dissapointed with movies that don't come close to the book (it's difficult to include all the nuances) but if the book is anything like the movie, and my guess is that it's even better, then I can't wait to read it!
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