I only wish that I had downloaded the kindle version of it before the trip because it was hard to put down each night when we turned the lights off in our cabin. Boy, was I right! I took an old, falling apart paperback copy of the book on the cruise and read it until it fell apart, finishing it the day before the end of the cruise. Since it's not a trashy romance novel, it fell out of my life until I recently took a two week cruise to Hawaii and figured it might be an interesting re-read. I first read this book almost 20 years ago, when I was just out of High School. For anyone who is traveling to Hawaii or just gravitates towards historical fiction and can hang in for 1,000 pages, this is the book for you. What surprised me the most about 'Hawaii' was the huge diversity of the islands. Michener's work is historical fiction but the diverse range of characters portrayed in the book gave me a deep understanding of Hawaii throughout the ages. But I am happy to report that 'Hawaii' opened my eyes even further to the extensive and fascinating history of Hawaii.

Though some of the language was outdated, understandably so, I loved both the rich characters and their stories in 'Hawaii.' I have read other amazing contemporary historical books about Hawaii so I felt like I had a good base of knowledge going onto Michener's classic book. It was also awesome to read my mom's copy of this novel from the 1970's. As a history lover and someone who will be traveling to Hawaii in six days, this was the perfect read.

Michener hawaii review