Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding. Increadibly entertaining and enlightening
Review: I found this book as entertaining as enlightening. I learned a lot about history, the one you don't usually learn, and I truly enjoyed reading it. I wanted to keep going with out finishing it. It is fascinating the way the author talks about Paris' landmarks such as The Louvre. It is absorbing the way Da Vinci is present in this story.
I definitely recommend this book. It has become for me a NEW CLASSIC.
Rating:
Summary: The best book I've ever read
Review: This is the best book I've ever read. It was both suspenseful and simultaneously educational. What a great way to convey information about art and religion that may otherwise bore the average person. I could not put this book down and I was sorry when it was over. I am looking forward to reading more Dan Brown novels.
Rating: 
Summary: Catholic Bashing Lite
Review: I have just finished "The Da Vinci Code". What an utter waste of time! Dan Brown adds nothing to the murder mystery genre with this book. Furthermore, the entire premise is implausible as the key element of the mystery, the "Priory of Sion" and its guardianship of the Holy Grail has been proven to be a complete hoax. Mr. Brown's biblical scholarship is shoddy, his analyses of the artworks of Leonardo are facile and, of course, he provides no motive for the secret, which has been kept for so long, to be kept. I am truly amazed that this book has received as much attention as it has. I am sorry to say that I wasted my money on this book. A much better read would be Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" or "Badolino".
Rating:
Summary: Sophmoric Plot, Interesting Facts, a Lot of Misconceptions
Review: By the middle, I knew who the Teacher was and exactly how the story would end for Sophie's "family," all along I was one step ahead decoding the clues, and I was bored with the boy-meets-girl, good vs. evil paint-by-numbers plot. Thrill me it didn't. But I did learn something about global navigation, so there's that.Had Mr. Brown researched Christianity as thoroughly as he did the Sacred Feminine and secret societies, he would not have used it synonymously with Catholicism. It was a fatal flaw to say the Bible was not reliable because it had been passed down by fallible men who bent it toward their own agendas. His credibility evaporated in that one premise early on. Contrary to his assertion that there is evidence the scriptures have been compromised through time and translation, scientists and archeologists have discovered the original stone and papaya writings are identical to our Bible today. Do you really think that, if there is a God, He would allow his Word (or message) to be thwarted by men, evil or otherwise? If He created the universe and everything in it, doesn't it follow that He's certainly capable of protecting a vital message's integrity? (Now you owe it to yourself to check out Chuck Missler's "Hidden Treasures: In the Biblical Text." hidden treasures and "Cosmic Codes: Hidden Messages cosmic codes, et al.) And, if there is a God (a creator) and Jesus was not He come in the flesh to fulfill every prophecy in the Torah Shebiksav (the Written Torah) and the Torah Sheb'al Peh (the Oral Torah), WHY WOULD ANYONE WORSHIP A SPOUSE OF HIS? If Jesus was just a man, OK, but that makes his supposed wife just a woman. Duh! I found it very frustrating that such a self-acknowledged academic "expert" as Robert Langdon would not address that basic philosophical question, but turn around and "explain" the corruption in the Roman Catholic Church. According to Brown's logic, passing down a "truth" by word of mouth, songs, fairy tales, and artwork is only reliable when done by those protecting the "real truth" of the sacred feminine. I threw it away.
Rating: 
Summary: Long slow read - and can be confusing
Review: I just could not "get into" this book. I enjoyed the history and "facts or fiction". I can't figure out why it has received all the hype - I guess because it attacks the Catholic church and religious history. I agree with others - borrow if you want to read - don't waste your money.
Rating:
Summary: You might like this book if...
Review: 1. You mourn the loss of the overuse of adjectives in modern writing.
2. Your B.S. detector needs new batteries.
3. You have a lifetime subscription to The Star, The Globe, etc.
4. You have gleaned all of your knowledge about early Christian history from the internet.
5. You were a Druid in a past life.
6. You have spent more than 2 hours of your life playing records backwards.
7. You were born yesterday and or just fell off a turnip truck.
8. You think a plot just gets in the way of good propaganda.
9. You have the ability to suspend any shred of skepticism.
10. Your idea of great literature is anything by Carolyn Keene.
Rating:
Summary: Pitiful pop-culture trash
Review: I was looking forward to reading this book because a friend told me that the book was about cryptography, symbols, and religion. I was disappointed by all three aspects. The shoddy recycling of religious urban myths is bad enough .... And the low-brow treatment of crytography was annoying too: mirror-writing and crossword-type puzzles is about as sophisticated as it gets. But at least, after 450 pages, the author could at least given the novel a satisfying conclusion. The author leads us to the brink of something satisying but leaves us hanging at the end. This is the worst book I have read in a long time.
Rating:
Summary: Best book I've read in years!
Review: I'm an avid reader who has never been a fan of best selling novels. Just because a novel is loved by the masses does not mean that it will be a story I will like, so for the longest time, I ignored this one. It wasn't until I saw the ABC special on Mary Magdelene that featured interviews with Dan Brown and information on the book that it grabbed my interest. I bought the book the next day and read it within a few days, not wanting to put it down and not wanting the story to be over. I found his fast paced writing style perfect for this type of thriller. It kept me in suspense for just long enough and then shocked me with each new revelation. I loved his use of art and architecture that exists in our real world and the way he incorporated it into his story with the symbology to make the story so believable. It all fit together like a perfect puzzle. I have no idea if the secrets the characters in the book find are real or if it even matters if it's true. It's a fictional piece of literature that captured my imagination and left me amazed, wondering about all the things in the world that we may never know the truth about. It was the type of book that I kept thinking about even days and weeks and months after I finished reading it. It made me want to look into and research the different topics brought up throughout the book, including not only the different theories on what the Holy Grail truly is, but also all the different art, architecture, and symbolgy found in the book. It's a book I would highly recommend but I can also see how many people would be offended by the book. It presents theories that totally contradict what so many of the world's people were taught to believe. Nonetheless, I think it is a great book and one of my all time favorite reads ever.
Rating:
Summary: locks you down
Review: Being a Christian and a student of science, both this book and Angels&Demons were extremely captivating to me. Even setting the subject aside, the storyline/plot alone was incredibly attention-grabbing. Although i loved both books, i read this one faster than Angels&Demons. But i'm not sure if it was because this is a tiny bit more suspenseful or because I read this one first, and the novelty of Dan Brown's writing and style caused me to not be able to put it down. However Angels&Demons' story line was a bit more complex than the Da Vinci Code, and less predictable too. I had my suspicions of who the culprit was in this book but when the culprit was revealed in Angels&Demons, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Some people might be annoyed with the author's attention to details, namely, facts of history and art. I never enjoyed history in school, or any other liberal arts subject matters, but I feel his explanations and details necessary and served as the backbone of the storyline. These two fiction novels were surprisingly educational and I was glad to have learned so much after each reading. Part of what makes these books so great is that they contains so many facts the average person wouldn't know, and these ground the stories and prevented me from thinking that the events happening were too outrageous / unbelievable. Don't start these books if you can't afford to lose sleep /put off whatever you were supposed to do for a couple of hrs.
Rating:
Summary: As my Scottish friends say...Tha's brillian'!
Review: This novel was wonderful. I read it in two days and would have read it in 1 if I didn't leave all my Christmas shopping to the last minute. The mystery is hidden in codes and riddles and I LOVE that sort of thing. They enable twists and turns I never saw coming and when I think I know which direction we are going in we take a 180. And that is how excellent writing should be. I also love the delving into an ancient real-life secret society and into the history of Christianity and of the basis of our current moral code. It definitely opened my mind about some things while at the same time helped me confirm the inklings of my own intuition. There is a tremendous build-up and one may say that the novel runs out of gas (hardly), but I think it unfolds brilliantly, leaving it up to the reader to decide what the character does after the mystery is solved.
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