Rating: 
Summary: My new favorite author
Review: I read Da Vinci Code first and liked it so much that I proceeded to read three other books by Brown: Digital Fortress, Angels and Demons, and Deception Point. I've loved every one of them! Brown writes books that are so good, you find you are setting aside everything else until you finish them. He is a suspenseful writer, holds your interest, and is enticing enough with his 'facts' that you're willing to suspend disbelief. Every one of his books leaves you satisfied and ready to read another. If you haven't become acquainted with this author yet, you're in for a treat!
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat Engaging
Review: I think the core problem is that once you figure out what the puzzle is, you lose interest. It's not a very captivating object of mystery for most people. And the repetition of everything--the endless puzzles, chases, clues, villain/hero determinations. Yawn. Best part was the first 30 pages. Last few pages were hardly an ample reward for enduring this long, twisted, predictable tale. Quel surpris! The Sophie's entire family REALLY didn't die in a car accident? What moron couldn't have foreseen that? Get out of here? Sophie, the gorgeous code expert, and Robert, the warm-hearted, lonely, academic live happily ever after?
Rating:
Summary: Shocking and Suspenseful
Review: Wow, I could not put this book down. It grabbed me right from the beginning. Although the storyline is controversial, I was not averse to hearing a new angle on the Holy Grail and the secret Da Vinci society. It's a shocking supposition about Christianity that has many people up in arms, especially after the "20/20" segment that recently aired regarding this book. Nevertheless, this is America - where you are free to speak, read, or write any story you want. True or not, this book is an exciting and suspenseful read. You don't have to believe in it to become absorbed by it. And you will. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Good read...
Review: Dan Brown's book includes a good deal of information about a world that has been hidden in plain sight for a very long time. To a greater or lesser extent depending on the denomination, Christian religious practices include many pagan rites and rituals. The most obvious center on pagan holidays such as Samhain (Halloween = hallowed eve of All Saints Day) or the example in Brown's book that involves the rites of spring. Those with art history and/or comparative religion backgrounds will be familiar with most of the 'occult' information Brown shares (if you can find it in books I guess it isn't too well hidden). However, it is important to keep in mind that Brown's tale is a work of fiction, and as such, the comments and thoughts of the protagonist (Robert) and other characters may or may not be accurate. For example, the purported millions of people burned at the stake for "witchcraft" is exaggerated as are the assertions that they were all women and the Roman Catholic church was responsible for all the deaths. Research conducted in the 1990s shows: 1) The numbers of "witches" burned at the stake was much lower than previously thought; 2) Many of those executed for "witchcraft" met their fate in Germany, Denmark, and Scotland (nominally Protestant countries at the time of the witch burnings); and most of those executed were not killed by church or secular authorities, but by apparently hysterical illiterate villagers who were both Catholic and Protestant (i.e. Salem in the New World). Perhaps as a result, Italy-a nominally Catholic country-is purported to be the home of the "evil eye" and many modern witches. (Raven Grimassi, a hereditary Italian witch, has written extensively on this topic). Fiction versus non-fiction aside, my one irritation with Brown's storytelling is that he pulls his punches in the denouement-probably because the editors wanted to increase book sales. I can't say more without giving away the plot-but this book is not THE NAME OF THE ROSE. While I admit to reading the book non-stop, I wasn't "scared" after the first few pages. I read on because I found Brown's weaving of occult information, art history, pagan lore, technology, Templars, Masons, and Paris fascinating. I have a personal interest in the machinations of Rome and the Knights Templar. My grandfather was a very high ranking Mason (as have been most of the male members of my mother's family) and my grandmother was a member of the Eastern Star (as have been most of the female members of my mother's family). On the other hand, I was raised Roman Catholic because my father was RC (and a Knight of Columbus). To say I absorbed a good deal of conflicting information during my growing up years is an understatement. I could really identify with Sophia.
Rating:
Summary: unputdownable
Review: This was one of the most interesting, bet paced novels I have read. Dan Brown hooks you from page one. I love how every time I thought I had everything figured out I was surprised by the next plot twist, and events I disregarded later came back with refreshing relevancy. The author made me feel like I was walking through The Lourve and travelling with the characters on their quest. Read this book, you won't be sorry.
Rating:
Summary: Hallelujah, a bit formulaic, but well worth it in surprises.
Review: In DA VINCI CODE Dan Brown brings back Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon from ANGELS AND DEMONS. Like his earlier outing, DA VINCI is a page-turner that is hard to put down, full of plot twists at a breakneck speed as the search for the Holy Grail becomes a race to stay alive. DA VINCI is teaming with interesting trivia that makes it worth a second read. Also recommend: MURDER IN KEY WEST, by Freeman and COCKPIT CONFESSIONS OF AN AIRLINE PILOT, by Keshner... both brilliant.
Rating:
Summary: I fail to see the attraction
Review: This is a very pedestrian action caper, written on about the college freshman level. Parts of it are so badly written, with such laughable dialogue, that I turned my head and winced. To its credit it's (mercifully) very quickly paced with a reasonably amusing little treasure hunt and some fun puzzles. But that's it. Plus we're asked to be nostalgic for pre-Christian paganism, which (from everything we know) was an absolutely horrible point in human civilization. (Human sacrifice, anyone?) All that rot about The Goddess, as though this was a period in history we would wish to return to, if only we had our heads screwed on straight, and hadn't been lied to by the Catholic Church. What nonsense. I would like to do a word search and see how many times the phrase "sacred feminine" appears in this book, but it must be at least 100. Once the puzzles were figured out, I just wanted the characters to go away, and couldn't care less if they all went to prison, won the lottery, or fell off a cliff. If you set the bar pretty low, you might enjoy this, but I'll not read anything else he's done. I could write better than this when I was in High School.
Rating:
Summary: More than worth it...
Review: This book is a wonderful examination of many of the beliefs that the world currently accepts as fact. The research and detail transport you through the story at an amazing pace. One of the strange things is that the entire story takes place in about a day and a half. For those reviewers, who have complained about the "expert" forgetting standard DaVinci history at points, neither of the main characters gets any sleep until the last 6 pages. They travel all over Europe on no rest. His forgetfullness can definitely be forgiven.
This book definitely ignited my interest in this topic. Be assured that the next time I look at a piece of art, I will remember a lot of the hidden meanings that are revealed here by Dan Brown.
Rating: 
Summary: Novel as longwinded puzzle
Review: The author leverages an intriguing possibility about the life of Jesus and suffocates it under the flimsiest of characters, a thick layer of explication on the sacred feminine, two tons of cliches and a plot with timing so perfect that if the protagonist had stopped to take a pee, the entire novel would have collapsed. Somewhere around page 20 I numbly realized the author wasn't even trying to give each character his own dialogue; conversations only serve to drive the plot 80 miles an hour to the end of this longwinded puzzle. And that's all there is to the "Code": riddles and word games wrapped around a framework of a lite detective story. (I understand the author's next work involves the same code expert in "Buddha Belly", where clues written on fortune cookies point to evidence that the supposed-vegetarian Enlightened One had a weakness for barbecued goat ribs.)
Rating:
Summary: You Too, Can Write a Formulaic Detective Novel!
Review: Dan Brown throws in every generic cliche valued by hack detective writers for decades. The police that are aware of every step their quarry takes, but conveniently turn into utter morons every time they are about to catch him.
The main character is the World's Leading Authority, but every few chapters forgets even the most pedestrian pieces of knowledge of DaVinci.
The ridiculous British character, Sir Leigh Teabing is drawn from 1930's Hollywood. I kept waiting for him to say "Pip, pip, and cheerio, old chap!"
And everything is intense! It's so very intense! They are just racing around like mad discovering secrets lost or guarded for centuries in a matter of hours!
The entire story takes place within a few days of the opening murder, and all along, Mr. Brown writes that the heroine is still upset over the murder of her grandfather, even though she's had hours to get over it!
And Brown tops all this off, spending hundreds of pages telling the reader that the secret he is leading us to is one that will change the world as we know it!!! But once it's discovered, the hero simply shrugs and walks away from it.
The book should have and could have been an interesting read in the hands of someone who was even halfway talented in the mystery genre, but Dan Brown is not that someone. His characters are ridiculous, plotlines absurd, and the Big Secret relies on utter nonsense dependent on the readers' lack of familiarity with the subject matter.
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