Rating: 
Summary: Unusual, Entertaining Mystery
Review: This is a mystery novel for people who don't normally read mystery novels. Smilla Jaspersin, a Greenlander living in Copenhagen can "read" snow. She can tell by the tracks in the snow that a little boy's death in Copenhagen was not an accident and she sets out to discover what did happen. I enjoyed this novel for its unusual setting and for the snappy personality of Smilla. Some reviewers have complained about the ending. I liked it.
Rating: 
Summary: A book to read over and over, to enjoy on many levels
Review: I read a review of Smilla in the New York Times Book Review the year it was published and was completely intrigued by it. I found it on a clearance rack for around 2 dollars a few years later, and have been reading it ever since. It is one of the few books that I take wherever I travel. Smilla is not always a nice person; most of the time her past envelopes her present and makes her almost unlikeable. The other characters in the novel, the mechanic, her father, the coroner and the blind linguist are so well written that you begin to feel that you know them. I can't agree with the 2/3's assessment,because I find it gripping to the end, even though I have read it many times. The atmosphere of Copenhagen in winter, the language of snow and ice, and the mystery surrounding a young boy's death may not move ahead like an American mystery, but the slow unraveling of the plot is perfect for a novel set in a country where life is lived at a different pace than ours.
Rating: 
Summary: one of the worst books ever
Review: I was in pain to finish it. The idea is good but the writing is so heavy, long-winded, boring that it was a suffering to know it was still there, waiting for me. The last part, furthermore, is a real torment. Peter Hoeg: never again.
Rating:
Summary: It's such a pleasure you'd forgive the last third...
Review: I loved being inside Smilla's head. Forget the ultimately spacey plot and the weak ending - this is good reading.
Rating:
Summary: Feel the cold
Review: This was one of the most interesting books I've ever read. What I found most engaging about this book is Hoeg's ability to make the reader FEEL what Smilla was feeling - the enveloping fog on a cold Copenhagen night, the endless expanse of snow in Greenland, the internal struggles in someone who is half Inuit and half caucasian.Yes, the ending was bizarre and not fulfilling. But the journey there is unparalleled if you allow yourself to get lost in the feeling of the book. Those reviewers who said the book was boring, gushy, slushy, etc., were probably expecting an action-packed cookie-cutter style book ala Clancy and Grisham. Smilla's sense of snow is definitely a unique experience.
Rating:
Summary: Too slushy
Review: Too long, too pretentious, too turgid, too boring, too self-important. I don't get all the glowing reviews; it's boring.
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Summary: Complex but Brilliant
Review: An amazing debut of a thriller/mystery. Smilla's Sense of Snow is complex, hard hitting and totally addictive, I couldn't put it down until I had read it from cover to cover. Peter Hoeg creates a truly believable character in Smilla Jaspersen who sets out to prove that the supposed accidental death of a little boy was in fact murder. The book goes at a cracking pace, jumping back and forth between the past and present, (hence the complexity of the book), until finally all questions are answered and Smilla's sense of snow is vindicated. The film is excellent too; it follows the book pretty well, with one or two deviations, which isn't bad, considering that Hollywood has yet to make a film that follows a book to the letter! Read this book and enjoy it, it's worth the time and effort.
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic first two-thirds, abominably bad ending
Review: Authors are all too often struck by the dreaded 'Two-thirds syndrome' -- the problem of how to maintain the suspense of a good book until the very end. All too often, about two-thirds of the way into a novel, you can almost hear the question reverberating around an author's head: "How on earth am I going to end this?" One of the best examples of this must be Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, a mystery which also does a superlative job of charting the alienation of a Greenlander in Copenhagen. Just as you're gearing up for a fantastic conclusion, the author turns it into a cheap spy novel and ruins much of what he has achieved. I am still puzzled by how bad the ending of this book is when you consider what went before
Rating:
Summary: Smilla's Sense of Story
Review: The strange conglomeration of science fiction, political activism, and suspense treats the reader to a very different kind of book. I could not put it down at times; at other times passages did seem to drag on. Hoag has a gift for character development, apparent in the portrayals of Benja and the Mechanic. I found the description of setting to be fantastic, especially in the flashbacks to Greenland. Someone like myself, who did not know much about Denmark and even less about Greenland, would learn very much from this book thanks to the numerous descriptons of the people, the weather, and their societies. My one complaint is that the transition between the two halves of the novel was not smooth; it almost felt as if two different books. Overall I found this to be a very engaging and intriguing novel.
Rating:
Summary: Smilla's set of brains
Review: I watched the movie (a good adaptation, which nonetheless does no do enough justice to the book), and decided to read the novel. This is the best thriller i have picked up ever. The writing is intelligent, the story line is intriguing, the characters are well drawn, and the insights into a culture of which i knew nothing about are fascinating. I am willing to forgive certain 'coincidences' that conveniently take place in the story, because over all this is a satisfying novel. And i very much liked the ending.
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