Rating: 
Summary: A haunting novel about personal demons......
Review: I have lived in New Orleans for years, and I pass by the house on St. Charles Avenue quite often and I wonder about it.<PB> I know it belongs to Anne Rice, and tho I have been in her other houses, I have not been in this one. <PB> Not in the physical sense. But I have visited this house with Triana, now that I have read Violin.<PB> Who among us has not listened to music and been dazzled, amazed and entranced by the sheer mastery of the musician, and secretly wished that we could play the same way?<PB> Most of us can emphathize with Triana and her desire to master the music she loves so much.<PB> We can also relate to her loss and her pain even as we wonder at her reactions.<PB> Rice gives us some insight into her own curiosity about life and death and reveals more about herself and her soul in this novel. <PB>
For those of us who know about her life, we see Rice in Triana....we see the death of her daughter and her life reborn in her return to New Orleans.<PB> We see her triumph over pain and despair and we "hear" the music that sustains her.<PB> This book reveals some of the depth in her character and we see her demons as they haunted her own life, for Stefan can only be a metaphor for the struggles she has lived through personally.<PB>
Whenever an author writes a book, that author gives us some of their life in their writing. <PB> As we read more, we learn more.<PB> Rice surely has given us more of herself than required, and continues to give us glimpses into her own psyche with each and every word she writes.<PB> It is a rare gift to be able to share a life with a contemporary writer.<PB>
Violin takes us on a whilrwind tour of the magic of Rice's words and imagery, to the melodious tune of music. <PB> And I will never pass by that house again without knowing that somehow, I have been given access. <PB>
This novel is a departure from some of her work that her fans are accustomed to.<PB> It is perhaps more cerebral and maybe not as much fun. <PB> It is certainly more tortured and revealing.<PB> I enjoyed it more than Lasher, or Servant of the Bones, and I eagerly await her next work. <PB>
Rating: 
Summary: So very slow and so very far away from Lestat!
Review: I have been a fan of Anne Rice's since day one. Unfortunately, her last two books have been a slow disappointment. Writing is an art form that imitates life, and Violin is like reading her biography. The character Triana is Anne Rice and she mourns the loss of her family and friends on the pages of this book. Every one mourns differently, but I am tired of reading about her dead family. This book has great descriptions of Louisiana and it's architectural history. The book starts out extremely slow, picks up and doesn't satisfy. Please, Anne Rice, bring back colorful characters like the ones in the Witching Hour and The Vampire Chronicles! Quit living in the past and move on!
Rating: 
Summary: utterly depressing or a good sleep-pill ?
Review: I have been a fan since I read a cry to heaven and the gothic sight of Anne Rice has always appealed to me. But this time Anne Rice takes the reader as hostage to exorcise her own demons. That would not be so bad if the two feelings that exsudes of the book were not sleepiness and depression. I am not a native speaker of english but her excessive use of the words utter or utterly every second or third page begins to get on my nerves.
Rating:
Summary: i let my husband read it first
Review: usually when an anne rice novel comes in to this house a fight breaks out. this fight is so predictable that in the past i have purchased two copies, of her latest work, one for him one for me. something told me this would not be necessary this trip out.. i read 30 pages, left it lying about, he read 50 pages , while on the treadmill and the book has been sitting on the night stand, untouched for a week.. last night he asked me if i could recommend something good to read. anne, thanks for saving me from another marital argument.
Rating:
Summary: I couldn't even force myself to finish this book!
Review: I have read every one of this authors books and was always a huge fan. The last few releases I tried not to read, did and was disappointed. After reading as much of Violin as I could take, I now know that I will not purchase another Anne Rice book. She seems to have lost whatever it was that she had that made her different from the others, now it seems she's writing just to write!
Rating: 
Summary: Why does everyone seem to hate this book??????
Review: I love the way Anne Rice describes the violin and Mozart andall the classical musicians. I never liked classical music but shemade me want to go out and buy some Pagannini. This book was great. I recommend this book to people who like descriptive language and flowery prose. BlahBlahBlah.... Read it Damn IT!
Rating:
Summary: a terrible piece of rubbish
Review: I have never been a huge fan of Anne Rice, only barely making it through the bloated and moronic psuedo-literature of the Vampire chronicles (which I simply had to stop reading after the fourth volume, which made me literally ill). However, while I was working the other day at the library I decided to speed read her new offering; boy am I sorry I did. It is Rice at her selfindulging worst, crafting the cheesy poetry style prose that for some reason has made her a big name. Let me ask other readers this question: with a story line this thin, how could the novel be 300 pages? Well, you probably know the answer. Rice makes a career out of expanding short story ideas into sprawling, nonsensical novels that reek of ego. This book could really have been a novella at best, yet in typical Rice fashion, throwaway scenes are abound. You could skip whole chapters of VIOLIN and still get the gist of it. Instead, why don't you do yourself a favor. Skip the entire thing.
Rating:
Summary: River of pain...
Review: If a muse has a poison, it's name is contentment. Pain, if only recalled, is like watered wine. Pain must be present to be brought alive for others. Anne Rice is suffering from that common killer of talent; success. I believe she may sit awake at night and mourn the ease with which such masterpieces as "Cry to Heaven" and "Feast of All Saints" flowed from her psyche in a superb and matchless agony. Anne Rice may be a more fulfilled person now, happier, more secure, healing from a river of pain. Yet every gain comes with a loss. Too bad this loss is also our own. Anne, take some advice; stop writing for a while. Take a sabbatical. Get back in touch with whatever it was that made you a giant. In my mind, you still can be, which means you still are. H.
Rating:
Summary: Just not enough of a story.
Review: This is the first Anne Rice book I might have just as well not bothered with. She can still write but this was just not enough of a story line to justify a whole book. The ghost and the human characters seemed to be leftovers from some more complex plot.
Rating:
Summary: Music can drive you crazy -- if you don't fall asleep first
Review: If you're a big fan of her Vampire series, you might want to forget this book. Anne Rice, like many authors, does't want to give up on a good idea and runs the series into the ground like she did with her Vampire series. In this books, she develops a new character who has a new demon. I found the first 50 pages hard to get though since you didn't really know what was happening, but once you met her personal demon, Stephan, she again falls into her writing style that pulls you into another world where you don't want to go back.
Unforntunately, she does go back into the present where she should have stayed in the past. The ending was not believable as she gives back to the demon the one thing that kept him to her without it being a trick. Maybe if she would have lost her new found talent, I would have found myself wanting a sequel.
If you are intested in reading a work that shows the author's time in the investigation of music and being drawn into another world, if only for a short time, rent it from your local library. If you want to be drawn into another world and stay there, read The Witching Hour.
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