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ddrosche's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. I just finished this book and I don't even know really where to begin. The beginning years in high school resonated heavily with me and drew me into the story ASAP. The story and Rice's writing kept me enthralled. Everyone here is flawed, troubled, and broken. The novel is so tragically written that you cannot wallowing in the events that take place throughout the book. I felt this was a super slow-burn but not in a bad way. It seemed as though nothing yet also everything was happening as you read. With little action to carry the reader through the story, Rice shines in his characterizations and story-telling that keep you invested. There is a light mystery or two at the core of everything that comes to a head at the end, but you'll go through 250ish pages before things really pick up pace; but I didn't care in the least. I'm still left in awe of what I have read and comprehending it all as it sinks. I'm eager to read other works by Rice as I have heard so many great things!
millennial_dandy's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 rounded up to 3
'A Density of Souls' really is that: an ensemble cast of characters and POV chapters covering two generations and sliding backwards and forwards in time. It's a lot to keep track of, especially in audiobook format. Perhaps as a physical book it wouldn't have felt so, well, dense, in terms of the number of characters, but I definitely found myself at times forgetting who was whose mother.
The plotting reminded me a lot of a CW drama, and I actually think some of the plot beats would work well in that medium; for a book juggling over 10 characters, it felt incredibly plot driven.
And what even is it about?
I'm not sure Rice was sure. That is to say, even though the collection of plot threads left nothing hanging in the end, it's hard to say how they were all supposed to connect. A lot of them do, but then there are others that feel completely tangential, as though Rice wanted to cover as much thematic ground as possible with little regard for how they all fit together (or didn't).
For the most part, everything revolves around shy, bullied Steven and the various ways in which other character's lives cross with his. But then there's another major plot point that has nothing to do with him at all and was just kind of left hanging out in the breeze; resolved, but out on its own.
This plot really should have been its own book. It had this interesting idea about grief and the weaponization of medicine. But again, it had nothing to do with anything else, and I really am at a loss as to why no one at any point in the editing process (gently) had it cut from the final product. Because as it is, I kept waiting and waiting to have something click into place to suddenly go 'aha! that's what this is all about!' But no, no.
The main plot, as such, is fine. There's some commentary about the toxic hero worship of masculinity in the gay community, but it never really goes anywhere despite there being a very passionate dialogue between two characters about it.
The topic that was probably handled the best was adolescent sexual experimentation, and how but for societal expectations/biases it would be fairly innocent. It's nothing super revolutionary by 2022 standards, but for 2000 I'll cut it some slack and assume there wasn't much in the way of that message in mainstream fiction at the time.
My true beef was the truly yikesy handling of rape and domestic violence, done in such a blase manner it really does accidentally make it feel uncomfortably normal.
Blasé is probably the word I would use to describe this novel overall. Probably due to the crushing weight of so many characters, every single thing that happens has to go at such breakneck speed that characters have no choice but to shrug off everything that happens to them, no matter how important or serious or horrific. And there are no consequences for any of it.
Meredith is built up as an alcoholic, and even ends up in the hospital due to alcohol poisoning at one point. But she just keeps on keeping on and ugh mom why are you concerned; I'm just vibing?
Just...lots of weird choices were made.
The one saving grace was the main plotline (was it the main plotline? Just the best one? The one that should have been the only one???) which centered around the gay district in New Orleans and its (and the gays frequenting its) relationship to the city at large. Some of what could have been more subtle points about the city government being unconcerned about the regular bomb threats bars on the street were getting were underscored as if with a jackhammer, but that section was at least coherent and seemed to understand what it was trying to say.
My main complaint, honestly, was that this novel was set in New Orleans and did practically nothing with it aside from having characters mention from time to time (in case we forgot) that that's where we were.
I really strongly have a preference for novelists who set their stories in real places to make a character out of the setting, and Rice really dropped the ball here.
New Orleans is such a unique part of America with such rich and fraught cultural history, and the most I got was that the graves are above ground because of it being below sea level and there are snooty classist ladies that live in the suburbs.
K.
I appreciate that Rice really was sincere in this book, and clearly loves his hometown (based on the little of it he does show us), it just seems like he was so invested in fostering all the ideas he had for the story he forgot to make sure he could actually bench press that much, so to speak.
'A Density of Souls' really is that: an ensemble cast of characters and POV chapters covering two generations and sliding backwards and forwards in time. It's a lot to keep track of, especially in audiobook format. Perhaps as a physical book it wouldn't have felt so, well, dense, in terms of the number of characters, but I definitely found myself at times forgetting who was whose mother.
The plotting reminded me a lot of a CW drama, and I actually think some of the plot beats would work well in that medium; for a book juggling over 10 characters, it felt incredibly plot driven.
And what even is it about?
I'm not sure Rice was sure. That is to say, even though the collection of plot threads left nothing hanging in the end, it's hard to say how they were all supposed to connect. A lot of them do, but then there are others that feel completely tangential, as though Rice wanted to cover as much thematic ground as possible with little regard for how they all fit together (or didn't).
For the most part, everything revolves around shy, bullied Steven and the various ways in which other character's lives cross with his. But then there's another major plot point that has nothing to do with him at all and was just kind of left hanging out in the breeze; resolved, but out on its own.
This plot really should have been its own book. It had this interesting idea about grief and the weaponization of medicine. But again, it had nothing to do with anything else, and I really am at a loss as to why no one at any point in the editing process (gently) had it cut from the final product. Because as it is, I kept waiting and waiting to have something click into place to suddenly go 'aha! that's what this is all about!' But no, no.
The main plot, as such, is fine. There's some commentary about the toxic hero worship of masculinity in the gay community, but it never really goes anywhere despite there being a very passionate dialogue between two characters about it.
The topic that was probably handled the best was adolescent sexual experimentation, and how but for societal expectations/biases it would be fairly innocent. It's nothing super revolutionary by 2022 standards, but for 2000 I'll cut it some slack and assume there wasn't much in the way of that message in mainstream fiction at the time.
My true beef was the truly yikesy handling of rape and domestic violence, done in such a blase manner it really does accidentally make it feel uncomfortably normal.
Blasé is probably the word I would use to describe this novel overall. Probably due to the crushing weight of so many characters, every single thing that happens has to go at such breakneck speed that characters have no choice but to shrug off everything that happens to them, no matter how important or serious or horrific. And there are no consequences for any of it.
Meredith is built up as an alcoholic, and even ends up in the hospital due to alcohol poisoning at one point. But she just keeps on keeping on and ugh mom why are you concerned; I'm just vibing?
Just...lots of weird choices were made.
The one saving grace was the main plotline (was it the main plotline? Just the best one? The one that should have been the only one???) which centered around the gay district in New Orleans and its (and the gays frequenting its) relationship to the city at large. Some of what could have been more subtle points about the city government being unconcerned about the regular bomb threats bars on the street were getting were underscored as if with a jackhammer, but that section was at least coherent and seemed to understand what it was trying to say.
My main complaint, honestly, was that this novel was set in New Orleans and did practically nothing with it aside from having characters mention from time to time (in case we forgot) that that's where we were.
I really strongly have a preference for novelists who set their stories in real places to make a character out of the setting, and Rice really dropped the ball here.
New Orleans is such a unique part of America with such rich and fraught cultural history, and the most I got was that the graves are above ground because of it being below sea level and there are snooty classist ladies that live in the suburbs.
K.
I appreciate that Rice really was sincere in this book, and clearly loves his hometown (based on the little of it he does show us), it just seems like he was so invested in fostering all the ideas he had for the story he forgot to make sure he could actually bench press that much, so to speak.
lyrareadsbooks's review against another edition
4.0
I read a revised version of this book. I knew nothing about it other than it had a catchy blurb and was on sale for $.99 on the day I was in the mood to buy a new book. For the first quarter of the book, my mental review went something like "standard high-school clique drama with a Southern Gothic twist, a little sloppy, but okay." Then something happened. The book got really good with unexpected twists and turns that sucked me like a fly trapped in a well-spun spider web. I won't spoil any of the action, but I'm glad I ran across this book. I can see why it has a cult following.
adierose74's review against another edition
3.0
Not really sure wtf I read here.
Edit: Apparently this is gay fiction. Oh.
Edit: Apparently this is gay fiction. Oh.
bookswithlukas's review against another edition
2.0
Christopher Rice loves melodrama.
I had no idea before starting this that Christopher Rice is the son of Vampire author Anne Rice (whose works I've never properly ready anyway) but it was interesting to see that he had followed in his mother's footsteps, minus vampire's of course.
What I can say about this novel is that it's 'okay'. The writing is quite good, and a picture of the town and situation is handled nicely but I felt everything got very melodramatic very quickly. This is a novel that includes mass murder, suicides (by the plenty), rape, domestic abuse, a husband who has drugged his wife into a coma for five years, infidelity, self-harm, alcoholism....it get's to be a lot of issues very quickly. Then come the end of the novel, in case none of that was enough, the author has a hurricane hit the town, for well, no real reason other than because he can. It got a bit much.
Character wise nobody really stood out, it never felt like there was a main character...sometimes it even felt like there were too many. I found myself routinely getting confused as to who was related to who. They were not distinctive enough either, basically all I felt from them is that they were all depressed in some way.
Overall an easy book to finish but not one that I would recommend. The same story has been told much better before, and I found it to be quite an empty read, which isn't really what you want when dealing with the topics and issues that this book does.
I had no idea before starting this that Christopher Rice is the son of Vampire author Anne Rice (whose works I've never properly ready anyway) but it was interesting to see that he had followed in his mother's footsteps, minus vampire's of course.
What I can say about this novel is that it's 'okay'. The writing is quite good, and a picture of the town and situation is handled nicely but I felt everything got very melodramatic very quickly. This is a novel that includes mass murder, suicides (by the plenty), rape, domestic abuse, a husband who has drugged his wife into a coma for five years, infidelity, self-harm, alcoholism....it get's to be a lot of issues very quickly. Then come the end of the novel, in case none of that was enough, the author has a hurricane hit the town, for well, no real reason other than because he can. It got a bit much.
Character wise nobody really stood out, it never felt like there was a main character...sometimes it even felt like there were too many. I found myself routinely getting confused as to who was related to who. They were not distinctive enough either, basically all I felt from them is that they were all depressed in some way.
Overall an easy book to finish but not one that I would recommend. The same story has been told much better before, and I found it to be quite an empty read, which isn't really what you want when dealing with the topics and issues that this book does.
alreadspurpleprose's review against another edition
3.0
What a strange little book and can I just say... that twist at the end
hazlewood's review against another edition
4.5
Think of something terrible that could happen.
It probably happened in this book.
It probably happened in this book.
aliciablack's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
lilnikki's review against another edition
4.0
Man. This was an interesting read. I couldn’t justify the mother’s decisions in the end to not tell their sons that they were brother lovers but still give it 4 stars. If I’m still thinking about a book months later that means it must have struck a chord.