Smilla's Sense of Snow/Cassettes

Rating:
Summary: What's all the fuss about?
Review: From these reviews, it seems that readers either love or hate this book. Frankly, I found it more than tedious and mired in murky, self-important writing, and more than boring.

Rating:
Summary: ho-hum
Review: Preditcable dialogue structure and an irritating main character make this book nothing more than an average thriller. Smilla's angst would be more convincing to me if she was much younger. In her late thirties, she strikes me as the type that just needs to get over it and move on. Others with her strength of character have been able to rise above the tragic circumstances of their lives.

Rating:
Summary: Slush
Review: The most this book has going for it is its imaginative title and its use of an Greelander that's an expert on ice and snow. The rest is boring, bogged down, self-important and silly.

Rating:
Summary: Great start, shocking ending
Review: I don't understand what happened towards the end of this book. We know Hoeg can write, can conjur up some astonishing images, so why did he end it so sloppily and so lazily? Another disappointment

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing story with a heroine cynics can love.
Review: This story and its unusual heroine lingered with me long after I'd read it. Smilla is a wonder: strong and resourceful, yet quirky, vengeful and darkly cynical. You see her drawn into the case of the little boy's suspicious death, almost in spite of herself, because her instinct is to fiercely protect her solitude and independence. The exotic settings (to me -- never been to Scandinavia)of Denmark and Greenland add to the inscrutable mysteries of Smilla and her story. The plot takes an X-Files-ish twist near the end, but you're so involved with the characters by then that you can forgive this. Sample of Smilla's thinking: "Falling in love has been greatly overrated. Falling in love consists of 45 percent fear of not being accepted and 45 manic hope that this time the fear will be put to shame, and a modest 10 percent frail awareness of the possibility of love. I don't fall in love anymore. Just like I don't get the mumps." Gotta love her.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding, tense & compulsive
Review: A quite brilliant book, keeping you guessing to the end, this is a very different kind of detective story. You really feel that you know the unusual mind of Greenlanders, and the prejudices they have to suffer (or are these phobias?) as Hoeg get right inside the skin of his feisty - INDESTRUCTABLE! - heroine. There are passages easier to read than others, but persevere - you won't regret it and you won't put the book down once you get to the climax!

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and unforgettable
Review: I first read this book about 4 years ago and have since re-read it twice -- something I rarely do! Despite the fact that the plotting is a little weak -- especially at the very end of the novel -- I love this book because of Smilla's character. She's angry and bitter, but also brilliant -- I would love to have dinner with her sometime! I find it completely amazing that Peter Hoeg could write the voice of a minority woman so convincingly. However, for all those like me who proceeded to read his other works after falling in love with Smilla, a warning -- I don't think any of them measures up. I'm hoping that someday he will decide to tell us more about Smilla Jaspersen. Until then, I just plan to re-read again!

Rating:
Summary: Smilla schmilla
Review: I completely agree with the reader from NYC who called it a "poor snow job." I too got half way through and couldn't take it anymore. Original? Yes. Gripping? Puh-lease!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent story and thought provoking, a rare combination.
Review: I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a story line different from the typical lawyer book representing most fiction these days. Hoeg's writing style and use of words has left me highlighting quotes throughout the book. Be sure to read this book without the purpose of "just getting to the end." Enjoy...

Rating:
Summary: What a strange book!
Review: I must adnit that Hoeg made a good effort to create a character of his opposite sex, and did it very well. Smilla is the most believable thing in the whole book, if not the only one. She's strong and stubborn, mixing these two kinds of personality to her own advantege. But, unlike Smilla, all the other characters are weak, and boring. The book is divided in three parts, and only the first one, in the city of Copenhaggen, is interesting, telling how Smilla tries to solve the misterious death of a young neighbour. But when she gets into the ship that takes her to Greenland, the plot becomes confused, making the reader want to skip parts. The end is the worst part. It seems that even Hoeg himself got tired of the book, and just ended it putting a final dot in some point he found interestingm thinking that people would think him a genious creating such an odd end like that. Well, that didn't work out with me. I don't know what happened with Smilla, Fojl, Tork. In the movie the producers made the ending different, so people wouldn't throw popcorn on the screen before the lights go on. A good start thrown away. Hoeg is not the modern Shakespeare other reviwers think him to be.