Rating: 
Summary: Not a bad first effort
Review: This is the second book I read over the holidays. I didn't take a day to read it either. In fact, I took several days to read this book. It's a lot to take in with the cast of characters and the jumping from one time period to another. Once I was comfortable, I didn't want to stop reading.The book was enthralling from the start. I didn't know where it was going, but when I started reading, I wanted to know where it would end up. It's not just a story of four friends, but the cirumstances surrounding them and the influence it has on their individual lives. Secrets, lies, deception. It reads like a teen soap opera at times, but there are many elements that I could pinpoint. There's a hand full of Romantic elements, but it's heavy with Neoclassical elements. The characters seem more driven by fate than their backgrounds. It's a great story. Rice makes the scenery come alive and the readers come off the page in dazzling style. Not only are the four friends' stories interesting, but their parents' stories are just as interesting. Even that reads a bit like a soap opera. There were twists throughout the book and even up to the last page.
I highly recommend it, but you have to read with an open mind. The book deals with topics like sexuality, alcoholism, adultery just to name a few. Don't read this book expecting a smooth ride either. There are many bumps along the way and some that may knock you for a loop. I enjoyed reading it as much as I'm sure Christopher Rice enjoyed writing it. His story comes across as genuine and realistic. I still can't shake the story out of my head. The imagery, characters, they're so fascinating.
Rating: 
Summary: Mixed
Review: Well, I just finished Density of Souls today after recieving it as a Christmas gift and I immediatly went on line to see what others had to say about it. I think that Rice has a fairly interesting story here, talking about homophobia at its worst. The real strength of the tale lies in the wonderful backdrop of New Orleans, and the supporting characters of Monica and Jeff. However I don't know if this book is for everybody, while there are obvious highpoints Rice, unfortunatly, was not able to maintain them throughout the novel. Also I was VERY disapointed by the ending, in which we find out two people we definitly do not want to be brothers are brothers and are left to wonder at more pointless dysfunction. I think Rice was promising enough as a writer to read this book and perhaps others, but he needs to focus more on character development while maintaining his strengths and eliminating his habitual melodrama.
Rating:
Summary: A mixed bag...
Review: I wanted to like this book; it's a tale worth telling. Like a number of the other reviewers, however, I found the book uneven. The plotting has some captivating moments, but also wallows in cliche. The writing itself is often lyrical and evocative, but just as often amateurish and mannered. The characters occasionally live and breathe, but often seem disappointingly one-dimensional. Brandon and Greg in particular seem to scream for fuller treatment, and the decision to cast them as unalloyed Bad Guys wasted an incredible opportunity to enrich the whole novel. Perhaps the novel's most decisive strength lies in the author's psychological insights. He's clearly onto something in his understanding of the older generation of characters in his story; and there were some surprising and novel penetrations into the interior worlds of Stephen, Jordan, Brandon, and Greg. But by and large, and especially in the case of these latter two, these insights were largely left unexplored and did little to deepen the novel. It's one thing to beat the reader over the head with the portrait of a character; it's another thing entirely to frustrate the reader and compromise the depth of the tale by saying too little. The difference marks the dividing line between a skilled author and one who's in over his head. I expect Christopher Rice will improve. He displays some real gifts here. There was much to like, but ultimately the book left me mildly disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: #1
Review: Never have I read such a novel that pulled me into the pages like A Density Of Souls did. From the beginning, the author hooks
you as four innocent best friends play hide-and-go-seek
one last time before entering the world of High school. After
entering high school, Brandon and Greg seek popularity,
the one and only girl mer's Stephen who becomes and outcast
becasue he is gay, and his "outast status" mainly comes from
the three people he was the closest to, his three friends. A novel filled with mind blowing twists and turns, and every emotion possible, this novel will surely hook you and pull you into a world so real, you will feel like you are one of the characters. Everyone should read this novel, especially teens;
it will make you reevaluate the meaning of friendship and the closed doors soo often hidden in the world of a teenager. Rice
will surpass his mother, I can only imagine his future sucess.
Rating: 
Summary: 1 Star is generous
Review: This book is absurd. So horribly written sometimes I was actually embarrased for the author. Rice tried to capture the existential angst of high school but he missed it by a mile. Better luck next time. Hope you develop some talent for story telling the next go around.
Rating:
Summary: The cruleties of highschool
Review: Born into the profession Christopher Rice, the son of a best selling novelist, Anne Rice writes his first novel A Density of souls. Glamour has proclaimed Christopher's novel as "A shocking sexy tale. An intricate novel about four childhood pals whose friendship deteriorate into a nightmare of violence and chaos." I agree with Glamour, I am a high school student assigned to write a review on any chosen book. I dreaded this assignment because "I hate reading", but now I have changed my views on reading because of this book. I had chosen this novel because I am around the same age as Christopher. This novel tells the story of four young friends torn apart by human insecurities of homosexuality. Brandon, Meredith, Greg, and Stephen were once the best of friends until these insecurities took over and were stretched to the extreme as they enter high school. These insecurities run wild like lost rats in a rushing flood. The exclusion and exposure of ones sexuality pushes the four further and further away from each other. A fatal accident causes another death, creating a chain reaction spiraling into what is to be discovered as a murder later on. The characters are so real the readers flip the pages to find out more about the realistic cruelties of high school and what they can cause. I found myself so involved in the story I was instantly filled with emotions that overwhelmed my body. I have never found a novel that has touched me like this one. The feelings were so real to me I often cried as I read what was happening. I feel as though this book as shown me why so many people read and I too have become a reader.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: A Density of Souls is a riveting work that keeps you reading from beginning to end and stays with you long after. One of my favorite novels of all time.
Rating:
Summary: A promising start
Review: If you are looking for a brilliant work of literature, this isn't it. But if you are looking for a book that is fairly easy to read, involving and entertaining, A Destiny of Souls is the book to buy. I think it it unfair to judge Christopher so harshly for having a brilliant writer as a mother. There is no doubt that his mother's fame got his work published sooner than most authors get any of their work published, but I believe he would have gotten his work published even without the help of his mother. If you are not a person who needs to dot all the i's and cross all the t's, but can sit down and let the book take you to wherever Christopher intended to take you, this is definitely the book for you. And about Stephen... I was taught to write about what I know instead of what I didn't know. It makes beautiful storytelling and beautiful this book is! BUY IT!
Rating:
Summary: Haunting.....
Review: I read this book yesterday and pieces and parts of it have stayed with me throughout today.... For a first novel, this one is breathtaking in its complexity. The number of characters. The layers of the relationships. The finely woven story line. I picked this book up, not sure I was in the mood to read it....alternately feeling as I read that I was IN New Orleans, that I was attending that school....but at the same time being witness to a horrific car wreck that I could not turn away from! I will definitely look for more Christopher Rice in the future! His writing is compelling, to say the least.....
Rating:
Summary: Anne Rice he is not (and even she isn't that good)
Review: I will be terse. Christopher Rice is riding on the fame of his mother. He writes at a high school level. His plot takes over half the book to even begin to develop. His characterizations are entirely unbelievable, and the way that the characters go from loving and having sex with each other in the beginning chapter to hating each other in the next is absurd. The story is very boring and tedious. It is obvious that Christopher Rice is using writing to come to terms with traumatic events that happened to him in high school. DO NOT READ!
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