Rating: 
Summary: A Promising First Novel
Review: Christopher Rice's first book, A Density of Souls, is fast paced and exciting, with lots of twists and intracacies. It follows the lives of four people, Meredith, Stephen, Greg, and Brandon, and the paths they take which pull them apart upon entering high school: Greg and Brandon becoming part of the popular crowd, as does Meredith, Greg's girlfriend. Stephen drifts away from them, labeled..., he is a constant source of amusement and a target for cruelty and humiliation. Rice isn't afraid to approach a very controversial topic in today's society: homosexuality and homophobia, which seems to be deeprooted in many who are internally concerned that they too, might be different. I wouldn't be put off by this content though, cos the book is more about the relationships between the characters and the events that one by one push them over the edge. While the plot and characters can be a little hard to follow at times, Christopher Rice shows a lot of talent and promise, writing a fresh, enjoyable book that will keep you turning the pages. I think if he continues to progress and mature, he'll be recognized on his own merit, and step out of his mother's shadow.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad for a first novel
Review: Ok, the big uproar about this book is that people think it was only published because his mother is Anne Rice. It's probably true. How many people get published that young? Anyway, who cares? It's a decent novel and people should just shut up about his mother. I'm also not gonna compare him to her in this review. Another thing people just can't seem to shut up about is that they think the main character, Stephen, is Christopher Rice. I can't help but think that people say this because he is gay. I don't really care if it's true. Many other writers do the same thing and Stephen is developed well enough that it doesn't matter. Now that I've cleared that up here's the actual review. I liked this book. It's not the best book I've ever read but it's far above average. Christopher Rice's style is descriptive with out getting stale and it has just a touch of gothic. I also liked most of the characters. Usually in books that switch POVs there are a few characters that bore me to tears but I didn't really have that with this book. A few of them could have been developed a little better though. The plot was also interesting enough to hold my interest through out the whole book but it can be a bit jumbled in places. There were also a few typos. If he used an editor they need to get smacked. My favorite scene is when Stephen's boyfriend breaks up with him because Stephen didn't share his dots with him when they went to see a move. So then Stephen buys a huge box of dots and leaves them on his door. There are more dramatic scenes in the book but that one is just so funny and cute I can't help loving it. Overall this is a good first novel. Christopher has all the makings of a great writer. His skills just need to be polished a bit. Slash (male/male or female/female sexual relations. In this case male/male) fans should enjoy this book a lot. If you aren't a slash fan you might not like it too much but it is still worth reading. I'm defiantly going to buy his new novel when it comes out in February. Hopefully it'll be even better than this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Nepotism at its worst
Review: Utterly awful. Christopher Rice makes his mother seem like Shakespeare (and I am no fan of the elder Rice by any stretch of the imagination). Hackneyed writing, melodramatic plots, flat (and unlikable)characters - this book reads like the worst, albeit R-rated, episode of The Young and the Restless ever. I finished this novel for the sole purpose of seeing how much lower this plot could stoop. And at least in that respect it's "surprise" - and by surprise I mean telegraphed in about half way through, as was most of it's shock value twist and turns - did not disappoint. There is so much better, more well written coming-of-age literature out there. No one should need to waste their eye sight on this train wreck.
Rating: 
Summary: CAUTION: Content may be offensive
Review: Christopher Rice's new book, A Density of Souls, had my undivided attention from the beginning! I began reading in the evening and the next thing I knew, I had turned the last page and it was 6:00 a.m. I've never experienced a novel with such page-turning capacity! I commend the author on his ability to capture my attention as fully as an engaging movie. On the negative side, however, one might find this book lacking some essential features expected to bring novels to a deeper level than their film counter-parts. It is overwhelmingly unrealistic and full of clichés. The author did not adequately set up the plot to permit its improbabilities. The characters are such archetypes that it is difficult to identify with any of them. I hope Rice has found that it's hardly possible to deeply develop a character when you so religiously stick to a stereotype. Based on what I've read on other web sites, Rice's world-famous mother, Anne Rice, pulled some strings to get this novel published quicker than it would have been had he been required to drudge through a few more revisions. This may have been the novel's greatest downfall. You can expect a typographical error every hundred pages or so, and several characters and scenes that the novel could have done without. I do feel that this book fairly treated the topic of "gay-bashing" by showing how realistic this problem can be, without retaliating by bashing back. I really respect Rice's ability to do this while not showing hard feelings against gay-bashers. I found it easy to sympathize with the difficulties of being gay in a heterosexual world, but it was a little more difficult for me to tolerate the graphic homosexual scenes. Rice is a talented writer and seems to have a lot of potential. I'll be looking for any further books to come out by the author, if perhaps he could spend more time on revisions and simmer down the hot sexual gay episodes to an R-rating instead of X. I wouldn't recommend this novel to anyone that I know, especially those with weak stomachs. Nevertheless, if there are any of you soap opera fans out there looking for a book with cheap thrills and graphic homosexual episodes, this may be the one for you.
Rating:
Summary: Great & Entertaining First Novel
Review: This is a great debut novel from someone so young as Christopher Rice is; I admit I was very sceptical about Anne Rice's son writing a book & I thought it only got published because of who he is, but I was mistaken-this is a good book. The storyline is weak in spots and somewhat unplausible, but I found it to be compelling and I couldn't put it down. I read it straight through, from 9:45 pm to 12:20 am, and then went back and read some of it again, I enjoyed it that much. The parts with Stephen and Jordan were the best; I wish their characters and story had been developed more fully, but Mr. Rice did a good job of portraying Stephen's feelings over his being gay. Actually, he did a good job dealing with homosexuality all around, from the reactions of high school students to gay classmates to the confusion gay teenagers feel to the loving relationship between Jordan and Stephen. It is good to see gays portrayed this way instead of as sexually promiscuous people who are incapable of having meaningful relationships. We need more portrayals like this in mainstream culture.
Rating:
Summary: Mixing up the issues...
Review: I guess what gets me is how people are basing their opinion of Rice's books on his sexual orientation and his good looks. There is definitely better gay fiction out there to be read, guys! (You'll figure that out when you get over your crush.) The actual writing is really shoddy. I admit I couldn't even finish _A Density of Souls_; I felt too much like I was back in high school- Rice is that kid who kept raising his hand to ask completely unrelated questions, exasperating even the teacher. I won't say what I usually think when I read books by very young novelists- that nepotism makes it possible- because I'm sure if Rice had submitted his photo and platform to any agent of bestsellers he could've done it on his own, but his writing would've deserved to be panned, anyway...
Rating:
Summary: Great Debut
Review: I became associated with Christopher Rice's work because I'm such a big fan of his mothers work. As for a debut, this novel was excellent. The same gift that his mother has in describing places to where you can smell the flowers and hear the traffic must have been passed down to Mr. Rice.
I found the story to be interesting and the characters were well developed. It saddened me to see that four characters who had such a strong bond in their youth would end up playing a part in each others destruction both emotionally and physically. I also liked how Rice gave some of his characters redeeming qualities, Meredith in particular.
I bought this novel while visiting a friend in Mandeville and laughed at the irony days later when I was reading about one of the characters driving across the Causeway bridge just as I had done the day I purchased the book. Never before had I started a novel and finished it in less than five days. There were moments I had to force myself to put the novel down (even at 2 in the morning.)
The only thing that threw me off with this novel were all of the grammatical errors and typos I noticed. He needs a better editor.
And lastly, if there is one thing this novel needs is a sequel. The ending enough shocked me and only left me wanting more.
Rating: 
Summary: What a surprise
Review: I've read many if Ann Rice's novels and so was curious on how her offspring would write. Even so, I put off laying out the money to buy the book until I picked it up at a overstocked book market--cheap. What a surprise (!), if I had known it was going to be this good, I would have paid full price. The character's, I thought, were well developed, were stories in themselves, and were interwoven pretty well. Although sometimes the plot seemed to get a bit lost, that didn't make it any less fascinating to read, and even more so since I had just been to New Orleans. I was amazed that a young man this age could put out something this intense, and wondered how much was pure imagination, and how much was based in real life. I've picked up his second book already and am hoping for something as good.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Mom! :)
Review: I had this book recommended by a gay friend who met Christopher Rice at a book signing in Washington, D.C. He is dyslexic and it's the first book he's enjoyed enough to read the whole way through... in his life! I enjoyed Anne Rice's novels so I gave this one a try. I must say, I enjoyed it more than any single one of hers.
Rating:
Summary: Review of: A Density of Souls
Review: Christopher Rice's A Density of Souls A Density of Souls is Christopher Rice's first novel. As the son of the author Anne Rice and the poet and painter Stan Rice, he has quite a literary reputation to live up to. He succeeded in living up to his namesake quite well with A Density of Souls making the New York Times bestseller list. One will not find the same fantastic, supernatural characters of his mother's novels. Rice effectively establishes his own style. A Density of Souls is a journey into the darker psychology that emerges from troubled and confused adolescence. The novel's four main characters are Greg Darby, Brandon Charbonnet, Stephen Conlin, and Meredith Ducote. A kind of coming of age tale emerges as Rice guides you through their grade school to college years. Stephen struggles with his homosexuality. Greg and Brandon battle with what their identity of high school football players or "jocks" entails, and Meredith grows from feelings of exclusion from "the guys" by her three best friends to being the cheerleader girlfriend of Greg. Their own individual searches for identity play off of each other. Greg and Brandon grow to torment Stephen. Meredith sinks into alcoholism and recording her hidden anger at Greg and Brandon in a secret notebook. She is caught between feeling protective of Stephen and her status as popular cheerleader and Greg's girlfriend. Rice's novel is a brave undertaking. It explores complex and taboo subjects such as homosexuality, alcoholism, abuse, suicide, and hate crimes. It accomplishes this through the depiction of four childhood friends growing up in New Orleans, bringing to light the fact that today's children are not as "young" as they seem. The lives of the children's parents are also entwined in the novel. A close look at their relationships amongst each other and it may be no wonder that their children have some of the "issues" that they do. Monica Conlin finally achieved her place in upper class society in the Garden District after coming from the wrong side of the tracks. She faces the fear that Stephen will follow in his father's suicidal footsteps, and ultimate betrayal by her high society friend, Elise Charbonnet. Angela and Andrew Darby have a less than functional marriage but put up a good front. Elise and Roger Charbonnet attempt to hide away one son they cannot control and conceal truths about the situation and his whereabouts from his brother. Trish Ducote is a divorced mom possibly attempting to ignore the fact that her daughter steals a bottle weekly from her liquor cabinet. Alcohol is an underlying theme in the lives of the parents and their children. All of these elements become various themes discussed in A Density of Souls. Stephen's feeling of isolation due to his homosexuality. Issues of class struggle and exactly what it means to be "upper class" depicted by his mother, Monica. Meredith is also isolated due to her femininity. She is a girl and cannot seem to get past her role as "the girlfriend" even when Greg is abusive and tormenting her childhood friend, Stephen. Her forced silence drives her to alcoholism and secret writing as her only modes of expression. Angela Darby is another tragic female character. Her husband locks her away in a mental hospital after tragedy strikes their family. He makes a deal with the doctor to keep her there even though she does not need to stay. In this sense, her own husband forces her into the "mad woman in the attic" role. Greg and Brandon deal with gender roles and ideologies as they try to be the "All-American football stars". The novel's short chapters and book divisions make it very easy to read. Each chapter has a kind of cliffhanger ending that will leave the reader wondering what's next as the story unfolds and events are explained piece by piece. One will probably catch himself or herself identifying with at least one of the characters on some level. A Density of Souls is a detailed depiction of the delicate interlocking lives of four families. Rice is not afraid to discuss the subjects that might keep us up at night. It is an honest, disturbing, and excellent tale.
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