Rating: 
Summary: Excellent thriller
Review: It's the beginning semester at Atherton College, a private, posh, and richly endowed school where a cross-section of freshman are getting their first taste of freedom from adults. Eighteen-year-old Randall is in the middle of an affair with his male, middle-aged, and married professor. He's desperate that his best friend Kathryn Barker, also a freshman, doesn't find out about the relationship because he wants to keep her respect and friendship.
Kathryn's friendship is the least of his problems when his professor's wife dies, the toxicology report showing a high level of alcohol and narcotics. Randall learns that the professor was involved with another woman who also died in a similar manner. With the help of a friend, Randall investigates the matter but he stirs up secrets that are better left buried for everyone's sake.
THE SNOW GARDEN is gothic in content and tone, a dark picture of the lengths people go to so they can hide their true selves. Just about every character in this novel is wearing a mask, but it is up to the audience to decide whether it is to fool others or themselves. Christopher Rice, author of A DENSITY OF SOULS, is a talented, creative, and intellectual writer who knows how to lay bare the truth about human nature. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing Follow-Up
Review: With his first novel, the highly intelligent and enigmatic A Density Of Souls, Christopher Rice explored the angst and axieties of today's teen generation with emotional fervor. Now, a year later, he comes back with The Snow Garden, a novel centered around College life. Unfortunately, this time around, Rice falls flat on his face as this book is highly cliched, derivative and not very interesting. This overlong novel (well, it does feel like it anyhow!) centers on a young freshman who, in his first year of College, befriends a professor and eventually begins a relationship with him. Of course, both men have many secrets which will be unveiled in the course of the story. Their relationship is far from being wholesome. Add to the mix a ten year old murder that still needs to be solved, a student who isn't what he really appears to be, and a slew of characters who are emotionally deficient and you end up with a story that reads like a bad soap opera. The book never interested me in the slightest. I actually found myself eager to get to the end. The book is also badly written; Rice's prose in Density Of Souls was very slow, lyric and beautiful. This time around, the words seem to have been put together with haste, as though Rice couldn't wait to get his second novel finished to get it out on the market. This one needed more care and editing in order to work. Instead, the novel ends up being a like a bad episode of Dawson's Creek, where you just want to grab the characters by the neck and slap them around a few times in order to make them stop complaining about their miserable lives. I hope Rice's next book will be better. What started out as a promising career now seems much less enticing.
Rating: 
Summary: Notice the last name is the largest thing on the cover...
Review: Poor Chris Rice! I know that he's published because of his mother and with this second outing I'm not sure how he got a book deal. This reads like bad college writing workshop drama. The characters are not only unlikeable but they have very little depth and their subplots are too inane...not to mention the laughably bad plotting he chooses. He has some saving graces though...some of his initial descriptions are quite lush and very gothic (which is what i'm sure he was going for) but all in all this book was such a let down. His first book wasn't that good either but I wanted to see what he would do when he didn't obviously use his life for a plot. Yet again he lives in fantasy land where every "straight" man wants to sleep with other men....as a straight man, I can say that for myself and most of my friends this is far from the truth....but hey who knows right? like the editorial review says this is very much a bad USA late night movie put to the page.... 1 star!
Rating:
Summary: Sexy and Complex Psychological Thriller !!
Review: THE SNOW GARDEN is one INCREDIBLE read. A psychological thriller, this book has a plot line that will keep the reader under its spell until the last page. Who people appear to be, isn't necessarily who they are, nor is it who they will become. The many layers of a person's real, and sometimes adopted/assumed identity, are the themes examined in this startling novel. We all have pasts and skeletons locked within our private mental closets. How we, and indeed the characters of this novel, cope with these skeletons as they impact upon our present, and indeed our future, is what Christopher Rice explores here. His characters are so real the virtually jump off the page. They are so engaging that the reader actually cares about them and wants to know more. Once you pick-up this book, it will be very difficult to put down. READ IT AND ENJOY IT TO ITS FULLEST. It is a richly written book.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it
Review: What can I say? I loved this book. For some reason Christopher Rice's writing has me hooked. The story line is WAY to complicated for me to attempt to sumarize but the main story revolves around Randall, a college freshman who is having a secret affair with his Art professor, Eric Eberman. This book take many twists and turns and involves murder, betryal and more! If you liked his first novel "A Density of Souls" you're sure to love this one.
Recommended for older readers, as the content may be a bit much for younger teens.
Rating:
Summary: What a great novel...
Review: ..well-written and well-crafted. I was hooked from page one. The stories that indwell in the novel are beautiful mix of tragedy and horror and for people not to like a book because of how the characters develop are selfish jerks. The mix of intrigue and suspense and the fact that it felt like the characters were really in college made it so much more believable. For a whilee after I read this book I felt like nothing could come close to this level of intrigue unil I read Kite Runner and got spoiled again.
Rating:
Summary: Yet again - amazing!
Review: The Snow Garden. Wow - this book excited me just like A Density of Souls - Christopher Rice has this knack of making his readers explore mulitple emotions while engrossed in his books. Randall - what a character. How can you not feel sorry for this boy - who seems lost in his own little world - who, due to his tragic childhood, clings to anyone and anything that gives him attention - but, who is so naive to believe that he is not being used - or perhaps he knows it - and likes it. Either way, what a great, complex character. The other characters were very detailed and had twists of their own. It was like 100 stories inside one book. Again, a book that, once you pick up, you can't put it down until you are finished reading....yay. :) Btw, I had to drink apple martinis reading this book - Randall's "addiction" to these drinks made me want one of my own! :) I can't wait for the next book.. :)
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing Gothic read
Review: I am going to be honest here. I picked up Christopher's book because I am a fan of his mother. This book isn't disappointing at all ~~ Rice is a different writer than his mother and the talent is there and it's all his. I didn't get the feeling that I was reading one of his mother's books ~~ this is a totally different style of writing and I am hooked.
Kathryn and Randall are best buddies as freshmen in Atherton, a fictious college set outside of Boston. Randall is having a secret affair with his college professor, Eric Eberman, who is a art historian professor who also studies Bosch. This is where the story begins and Rice begins to weave a tangled web of deceit, lies, and misconceptions ~~ till a woman is murdered and the web becomes even more entangled with more characters that lead to different theories. Sometimes, the stories are half-muddied ~~ meaning, that they're not quite finished and leaves more to the imagination than the reader would like. But the plot is solid and the lyrical writing is wonderful to read. It's a great mystery and I found myself unable to tear myself away from the story.
This is a perfect reading for a cold fall night when the fire is crackling in the fireplace ~~ and you're all alone. It's not only a gothic mystery read ~~ it's also a self-search into man's search for happiness and meaning to life. It's an enthralling book ~~ and I am now curious to read more of Rice's books.
8-24-04
Rating:
Summary: Notice the last name is the largest thing on the cover...
Review: I loved Christopher Rice's first novel "Destiny of Souls," so when I saw this in a Penn Station newspaper stop, I knew I had to read it. I read most of the book on my train trips that weekend. It was one of those books I just lost myself in. The story is well-written and very intriguing. It takes twists and turns constantly, leaving you wanting to continue reading. I had never previously read anything by his mother, but have definitely fallen in love with the intrigue of Christopher Rice's novels. I cannot wait to read his next novel.
Rating: 
Summary: if you're not expecting much...
Review: if you're really not expecting much from this book, then it's not all that bad. Wandering through barnes and noble one day i stumbled on this book and became bretty interested to see if he actually had any talent as a writer, or if he was just going off of his last name.
Well, I don't think he is a horrible writer, and honestly i don't find the book to be that horrible. I however wasn't expecting much so that probably has a lot to do with it. The information on the back cover was horrible misleading I honestly thought the book was going to be about something completely different. Also the editing was pretty horrilbe too, I suppose he can't really be blamed for that completely.
I think if Rice just sharpens his story telling skills he'll grow up to be a real good author, currently however his novels are decent enough if you're just looking for a quick read with no real thinking involved (I read this book in one evening with no difficulties)
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