Rating: 
Summary: The First Novel to Make Me Say WOW in a Long Time!!!
Review: I finally talked myself into buying a copy of "A Density of Souls" this morning. I was planning on it being a typical gay coming of age story with all the cliques and stereotypes--boy was I wrong. I started reading the novel at 2:30p.m. and was done later that evening. I truely could not put it down. The world that Christopher Rice created captured me and refused to let me go.His descriptions were vivid, to the point, and contained examples of witty humor which brought characters and places to life. The work was realist and believable. Topics were neither sugar-coated nor overly exploided. The novel opened us up to views that we would often overlook on our own. Character behavior
and development was explained by examples of family life and past experiances of characters. This novel brought joy, saddness, arousal, and anger too me all in a matter of hours. This may not be the book that you are expecting, but it is amazing and I would encourage everyone to read it.
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Summary: Nothing Dense About Density!
Review: Lucky enough to get my hands on an advanced copy of Christopher Rice's first novel, I couldn't wait for it to be released so I could share my thoughts with upcoming readers. Rice starts out a little too poetic, and I feared he was forever trapped in the footsteps of his mother. Anne's work is beatifully written, but often too absorbed in its detail and straying from plot. Chris gives all that up quickly and dives deep into the souls of his characters, giving them life and meaning. I had to stop several times and reread a page just because it touched me so deeply. You feel every second of his youthful characters' rage, gripping the book tightly in your hands and holding your breath. The high school popularity, the homophobia, the family secrets, the madness and rage...there is something that will tease you and make you stop reading for just a second and think of your own life and your experiences. If you don't cry, if you get mad and throw the book down, or even if you don't hold your breath and rush to finish just one more page, then you will never experience the "soul" of this book. It is truly amazing, and one of the best books I have ever read from any new author. Forget for one moment who his mom is and what she has written; listen to Christopher and the story he has to tell. You will be amazed!
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: Decent Debut with a Good Story
Review: This story is interesting and very well worked out, while the author's english and writing skill leaves something to be desired. The publisher most likely relied on Christopher's last name to sell novels (and was write in coounting on it) but there are minor fixes that needed to be made before the story was published. Christopher has proven that he has a remarkable imagination, as his mother has, and can weave a good story. While the ending may be shocking to some, I believe this is what the author was going for, to shock, make the reader think and begin a discussion.
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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.
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