At 37% in I asked what the hell was going on? I just finished the book and I still don't know. I think it went on way too long and had a lot of unnecessary information. I also think it could have been about half the size it actually was. Lots of art history stuff that bored me. I also think that there were too many characters to keep track of and honestly, it was pretty predictable. I will give this author another shot as I have another one of his books but I didn't enjoy the book at all.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion. ( )

Son of author Anne Rice, I had high hopes for this book. But, it was a struggle to get through. This book is kind of dirty, trashy nonsense. Another reviewer said, "It's ridiculous and melodramatic, but in an unintentional sort of a way. These [mostly gay] characters are all a little too damaged-and-broken-underneath their Prada-and-sunglasses to be legitimate people, which would be totally okay if this was a satire. But it's not." That's a pretty clear depiction - set on a college campus, these 18-19 year olds are trying to find their way but as their high school secrets are slowly (much too slowly) revealed, I found I didn't care what their secrets were - drugs and sex? That's it? The gay characters seem so stereotypical and even the gay guy's best female friend is a cardboard cutout..... Oh yeah, there's a murder on campus that involves some of the students, but .... I didn't care about that either. ( )

The Snow Garden was written by Christopher Rice when he was only 22. The novel is about College Age characters who are involved in a murder mystery, sexual promiscuity to a degree with a homosexual storyline. Another reviewer describes it as "a murder mystery, of sorts, that takes place amongst the privileged but tormented youth of an Ivy League college."

The story begins with the death of the wife of respected professor Eric Eberman. Is it an accident or was she murdered. Did the professor murder her due to his sexual relationship with Randall Stone, a student? Randall, fearing that it was a murder by his lover, he dig's into his past. Randall and his friends, Jesse and Kathryn, are the main characters in the story. There is sexual intrigue, more murder and suspense that keep you reading, even though you might not want to.

A novel that seems more fitting to younger readers than I. I received a copy of this book from netgalley for an honest review. ( )

I'm not quite sure what to say about this book although I think it may be more appealing to younger (20 something) readers. Since I am an older reader, I don't know if it's the usual course of events that so many damaged people can find each other so quickly on a college campus. They do in this book and this is the story of how they further damage each other, with some surviving and some not surviving. Some of the dialog becomes tedious and then we have a round of action or another twist. Creative and well written however at 500 pages, I think it could have been a good story with 100 or so fewer pages. ( )

I had the misfortune of reading this dreadful novel. It was one of the few novels that is so bad that I couldn’t finish reading it. Set in Atherton University, the two main characters are freshmen Kathryn and Randall. Like three quarters of the characters in this poor excuse for a mystery novel, Randall is gay. The fact that just about every character in the novel is either gay or has gay tendencies, makes it kind of lose any significance. To make matters worse, even though there is sort of a mystery with a possible homicide of a professor’s wife, the novel is really about the sexual relationships of the characters in the story. Everything else is in this novel is filler.

The characters in this novel are poorly drawn, to be kind. They are so dripping with teen angst and so self-absorbed, that they could have been taken from the cast of Twilight. There isn’t a single character that I found the least bit interesting. The writing style is such that it seems as if Christopher Rice is trying to wow the readers with his prose rather than tell a compelling story. There was a not a single thing that I found redeemable about this novel. This is one I strongly recommend skipping for your own sanity.

Carl Alves – author of Blood Street ( )