Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent Read!!
Review: This is an absolutely fantastic book, which raises questions I never thought I'd ask. Could not put it down, finished it in less than a day. Who needs sleep when you've got a book like this to read?!
Rating: 
Summary: I like it
Review: I liked it, especially in the middle section where all of a sudden I was overwhelmed by the sensation of... dare I say it?... an epiphany, a long standing question had been finally answered. In the following I will explain my own personal reason why I liked the book, and I hope you might find it interesting.I am an immigrant to the United States. What I am trying to say is that I do not have a Protestant/Catholic background, or at least a background that would have given me some familiarity to the imageries/ideas of Christianity. (I might add, nor do I have any background in Judaism and/or Islam which would also have given me some understanding of Christianity.) As an immigrant teenager in America, I attended a high school that studied fine art. As part of the curriculum, I studied "art history" which mainly meant "european art history" (or least it was the way two decades ago). As anyone who had taken a course in introductory Art History twenty years ago would know, the course work mainly focused on (or at least the most readily available and detailed information were on) Renaissance Arts. And that's precisely the area I had the most problems. Regardless of the fact that the Renaissance were a period of re-birth and a break away from Medieval time, a lot of the Renaissance paintings were still steep in images of angels and other Christian icons. I couldn't understand any of it. Twenty years later, while I was reading Mr. Dan Brown explanations of the oddities of da Vinchi's "Last Supper," all of a sudden I felt as if I had a new insight to all those "Christian" paintings I tried to decipher long ago as a teenager. It requires more than a textbook's definition of "Christianity" to more fully appreciate the meaning and subtlety for the imageries I beheld years before. In sum, I guess what I'm saying is that I find the "alternate Christ Gospel" Mr. Browns and others before him have provided somehow completes the pictures for me. Somehow the alternate story complements and completes the missing link for me. Somehow I feel as if I can understand those strange Bible stories that had confound me in the past. Somehow it is no longer so incongruous that the same God could act so benevolent at times can be so vengeful at others.
Rating:
Summary: Come on say it with me....FICTION
Review: wow, talk about a morass of mediocre reviews(this included) in what way is an albino monk assassin stereotypical?, technically he's the opposite of stereotypical. Regarding the religious validity of this text, let's talk bible post Congress of Nice, where are the Book of Jasher and the texts for the other 9 books that are missing, where's the validity? But I divulge, I'm the furthest thing from a theologian in the world, believer even. But I am a writer, and I notice the severe dichotomy between the way we view fiction. Stephen King isn't blasted when he writes about vampires, ghosts or aliens; yet we seem to attack Mr. Brown for using fiction that is eerily close to the truth. Whereas King's topics are obviously fiction, Brown's tend to touch very close to an apparently fragile reality. Remember the book is FICTION...FICTION...not satire...not psuedo history...not even an attempt at validity...pure fiction...so settle down and read a good book...or stick to 'Inspirational Fiction'...you know the kind that says that married couples stay happy forever, don't lose their love, and are united by their 'faith'...and stay out of the mainstream
Rating:
Summary: Real or Not?
Review: This book is so well crafted, you can't tell what is actual fact from Mr. Brown's cleaver imagination. Highly recommend this book!
Rating:
Summary: Light Entertainment
Review: This is a very enjoyable read for an airplane trip or rainy vacation day. A deranged albino monk, a secret society, a new theory of the life of Christ, and secret codes all make for an enjoyable fiction ride. This isn't a serious literary work, but for it's genre, this book is everything I expect from light entertainment with a twist.
Rating: 
Summary: What a potboiler!
Review: I read this based on many recommendations. As long as you don't expect anything of higher quality than a typical waiting-at-the-airport book, go for it. But don't count on it for anything else. Stereotypical characters (an albino killer monk? please!) and situations. I'm glad I didn't buy this, but read a lent copy instead.
Rating: 
Summary: The Well-Written Piece of Historical Fiction
Review: The premise of this book, a search for the mythical "Holy Grail" and the subsidiary premises - 1) that the Grail is not a "thing" but a person and/or relationship and 2) that a secret society has kept secret the location of this person and information for several centuries, is a little much to believe. Dan Brown has a very good grasp of history in regard to the Grail, the Knights Templar, Freemasonry and the semi-legendary mythos surrounding these entities, but its clear that he hasn't really delved into the theological inconsistencies of adopting the theories espoused in his book. To make the case that Mary Magdalene was the "Holy Grail", that she rivaled Peter for the leadership of Christianity after Jesus' death, that she and Jesus had an intimate relationship that yielded children whose descendants are alive today, calls into the question the entire basis for Jesus' mission on Earth. I can't think of a single main-line Protestant denomination that would accept such an idea - obviously the Roman Catholic church would reject it outright. Such a scenario creates too many inconsistencies, in fact, to make possible the belief in Jesus as divine. So what this book really ends up promoting, as an (un)intentional consequence, is unbelief. If you're like me, you tend to think that ideas with little merit die-out rather quickly while those that bear strong elements of truth and believability survive. The ideas espoused in this book have been around for a while, but never accepted by anything but a lunatic fringe of conspiracists. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic church continues to add members to its ranks worldwide 2000 years after the death of Christ. You make the choice.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun Read with Little Time for Thinking
Review: Short chapters with an action movie styled pace that push the reader forward at a breakneck pace. This constant hurried pace is both the stories greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The plot is built around a whirling collection of controversial historical "facts" like the relationship of Mary Magdalene and Jesus, Gnostic gospels, and the Holy Grail. These historical concepts are thrown at the reader at the same blazing speed that a breath taking car chase might be described. There is no time given for the reader to really think, and again that is also the books greatest strength. Intellectual, no. A lot of fun and a quick read, yes.
Rating:
Summary: Overrated like the 6th Sense
Review: See the ending coming a mile away.
Rating:
Summary: Oh, Please!
Review: When I got to the fourth line of the first chapter and read "hand-frescoed walls" I knew I was in trouble at the hands of a very careless writer. How else would the walls be frescoed? By feet, robots? We find totally wooden characters, ludicrous cliff-hanger plot twists, lumpen exposition, red herrings not worthy of the worst of Agatha Christie, and puzzles which could be solved by an intelligent seven year old. And just when, during this long night, did anyone get the chance to go to the bathroom? Why, you might ask, did I bother going on? Well, it was at least more interesting than the in-flight shopping catalogue in the seat pocket in front of me on my 6 hour flight yesterday. The majority of raving, enthusiastic reviews that I read here leave me deeply gloomy about the intelligence of the reading public.
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