Rating: 
Summary: Where is all the hype coming from?
Review: Perhaps the buildup was too great, but certainly my experience with this novel doesn't begin to match the wild acclaim that heralded its arrival. Every turn of the page disappointed me more. Mr. Brown has obviously hit a chord with some people, so for that I applaud him. But is his novel an intelligent page-turner? Not in my opinion, it wasn't. This book is written at a junior high level at best. For me, the final straw came with the unveiling of a certain coded message (I won't spoil the story by being more specific). I recognized it instantly as a child's secret code. If you ever owned a decoder ring, I'm sure you'll be able to figure out this code in a heartbeat, even though Mr. Brown's brilliant Harvard professor, and English historian both had trouble. Mr. Brown assumes that we must be told everything, and I do mean everything. Despite the characters' supposedly rich intellectual backgrounds, they are forced to ask the most simplistic questions for reasons of exposition. Though the premise is intriguing -- or could be in the right hands -- if you're looking for something to exercise your gray matter, I'm sorry to say this isn't the book to do it.
Rating: 
Summary: Good who-dun-it
Review: This was the first Dan Brown book I read. It's great. His weaving of fiction with non-fiction is excellent. There were excellent twists in the story and the final realization of who the bad guy was really suprised me.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Recommended
Review: I love mysteries and this book kept my attention to a point. However, the author presented many religious theories as facts (I think the research was lacking). The more I read, it became apparent that this novel was an attack on the Catholic Church as well as traditional Christianity. I found this troubling since some readers will view his 'theories' as the Gospel truth. I wonder about the author's background - I kept feeling as though a bad experience with the Catholic Church was the basis for this book.
Rating:
Summary: A reader from Michigan is a BIG LIAR!!!
Review: A reader from Michigan is so full of crud. Not a freakin thing in this book is true. He's a big liar. He didn't research it. The liar. This book sux and you really shouldn't read this load of cr@p!
Rating:
Summary: The Da Vinci Code
Review: Like others,this book was highly recommended to me. Although the subject matter was very interesting, the writing style left me wanting more. The characters were not fully developed and after a while, it became predictable. I felt as if the author was telling me everything, instead of letting me figure some things out on my own. After all the high praise, I was dissapointed.
Rating:
Summary: Poorly Written Book
Review: This book was highly recommended to me and I couldn't wait to read it. I could barely make it through. While the symbology and art aspects are interesting, it was very poorly written. Lousy character development. The plot started out good, but completely fell apart. I suspect that people who love to hate the Catholic Church and the Vatican are the ones enjoying this book. I'm amazed it's so popular.
Rating:
Summary: 2 stars is too kind
Review: I totally agree with operation-mobacracy. Only I think 2 stars is 2 too many. Brown is a hack.
Rating:
Summary: Great read in every way.
Review: I couldn't put it down and was interested enough in all the information/history, after finishing the book, did research to find out what was true and what was fiction. And VERY surprised to find out most of it was true! This books goes on my shelf of books I won't pass along - I want to read it again.
Rating:
Summary: B-grade novel made worse by moot premise
Review: The premise of this book is that the "Holy Grail" contains all kinds of information which would invalidate the male-centric teachings of the Catholic church and that the Church wants this information badly to maintain their "control" and historical destiny.The trouble with this premise is that the Catholic church's teachings have already been invalidated for centuries; Coperenicus and Galileo at least started this trend 5-600 years ago. As for the role of the feminine, women's role in society is as good as it has been in thousands of years, and is arguably increasing. The power and influence of the Catholic church is (barring conspiracy theories) only a fraction of what it was. So tell me why the church or anyone else is willing to kill people to "expose" the church's teachings, limit the church's powers and increase the importance of women in our society? Unfortunately for the reader, in addition to having a premise that doesn't make logical sense, it's also written in airport-book-kiosk B-grade prose; a tolerable time-killer if the premise is even halfway logical. It would have been a more interesting book if it had been set in the 1870s instead of the current era, as the premise as it relates to the historical political and theological situation would have been much more believable.
Rating:
Summary: Formulaic and predictable
Review: A quarter of the way through I realized why this book is such a page-turner. Brown uses a tried-and-true formula for keeping the readers going, even when the story lapses into incredible implausibility. Develop a series of mysteries within a bigger mystery and keep the reader interested by making every chapter a cliff-hanger. One mystery solved leads to another mystery to be solved. Etc., etc., etc. Now that seeing how it's done by a master I'm going to write a similar novel, make a million bucks, and retire. Unlike Mr. Brown, however, I won't bother writing more than one bestseller. I'm not greedy. I figure one good bilkering of America's dumbed-down readers is enough.
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