Rating: 
Summary: One little , two little , three little cryptograms...
Review: The story is a fine mystery I suppose...but the endless cryptograms and ciphers got pretty tedious. Any book with Templar Knights the "Holy Grail" and an albino assasin gets a star just for trying. I heard the author on a local radio program try to push the feminine goddess concept, which on its face sounds reasonable...but with deeper study you'll find its just another heresy in a long list of Pagan concepts that stretch from Babylon on down to our present day. Throw in a little British Israelism and some DaVinci mysteries and SHAZAAM...we got a bestseller! I probably would have given another star if not for two things...on Audio recordings how frickin hard is it to pay an actress to read female lines? I'm sorry but even at his best the voice actor here makes a delicate French cryptologist sound like Francois the village drag queen. Second...I was doing ok with the recording until Langdon asks Sophie.."You witnessed a sex ritual didn't you?" and then tried to explain it being something not about sex...but a divine ritual of the Goddess. Yeahhhhh...Riiiight. How many Masonic Templars have used that line?
Probably would work at a Tantra convention I guess. Theologically... what a bunch of HOO HAA!
Rating: 
Summary: Makes you think
Review: As someone brought up in the Catholic faith, this really makes you think. For example, doesn't it make sense that a young man of that time who was a carpenter's son would have been married? Is it so different to believe a human was born of a "virgin" than Budda coming from a lotus? It is all a matter of faith and that is what he points out so beautifully. So what do you really believe? Don't take it all for granted. After all, weren't "indulgences" really just a way for the popes to make money for the church? Not everything we were taught in parochial school was true. This book makes you want to sort out fact from fiction and think outside the box. In the end, it is a novel, a great read, and good material for a round table discussion.
Rating: 
Summary: Page Turner Supreme
Review: Look in the dictionary under the definition of great writing; this book is it.
Rating:
Summary: Utterly gripping!
Review: WOW! If you're in the mood for a few cheap thrills -- this book will certainly provide it. There's not much character development, but the pacing and plotting of the narrative is so tight, it's like a literary equivalent of Raiders of the Lost Ark! I've never been propelled through a novel so quickly in my life! Truly a fun, fast read! Take a moment to enjoy it! Other recent Amazon purchases I enjoyed: Life Of Pi, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez.
Rating:
Summary: By far the best book I've read in years
Review: I read a lot - and this is by far the most interesting book I've read in years. The action is paced well, the historical information is accurate and the plot stand up well. There is so much going on and you're thinking about everything that for once the ending really was a surprise.
From a pure literary sense, this book falls down. The dialogue is clumsy at times and the writing seems forced. Give it 3/5 as a literary book and record it as the only flaw. That probably keeps it from being a perfect 5/5 for me overall.
There are people who won't like the subject matter. I will warn you that it deals with religion and lightly questions a lot of what you "know" is true. Apparently the author believes a good deal of what he writes, but even a crackpot can tell an entertaining story. I don't think this book is going to be creating the religious firestorm that other reviews have hacked it for.
Rating:
Summary: entertaining fiction!
Review: I finished this book yesterday - and it's one of those that I keep thinking about, missing the characters a bit, now that I've left their story-line. It's entertaining, intriguing, fun, but I didn't once mistake it for a textbook or a factual primary source.
I liked it for the same reasons I like WWII code-breaker stories, it united math, history and art with a suspenseful storyline. And like other interesting stories, it prompted me to do my own research into some of the tenets of the plot. Overall, a very entertaining fiction!
Rating:
Summary: "Three may keep a secret. . . ."
Review: The Da Vinci Code begins with an engrossing prologue that sets up all the elements of a swashbuckling mystery thriller, but the book deteriorates immediately afterwards. Despite the interesting subject matter, author Dan Brown flounders at writing suspense and creates characters too stale and clichéd to carry the story forward in an engaging way. Following the successful opener, Brown begins the action with a corny formal introduction to his protagonist, Robert Langdon, a debonair academic recycled from an earlier novel whom Brown clearly plans to parlay into a franchise of future bestsellers. Brown isn't sure how to characterize Langdon or the supporting cast and prefers to typecast, simply namedropping the Hollywood leading man he imagines playing his hero in the movie adaptation. (Hint: it's no coincidence that Langdon seems a crude knockoff of Indiana Jones, minus the gritty personality and rugged wardrobe which make the latter interesting.) None of the book's literary flaws are as grating, however, as the dialogue, which Brown renders so clumsily that it reminded me of nothing so much as a story submitted in college creative writing by one of the dimmer bulbs in the class. Readers will quite literally cringe during most dialogue and especially during two flashback scenes whose inclusion in the book is downright perplexing, one in which Langdon lectures college students on pagan sex (or something) and another in which Langdon visits a prison to conduct an advanced seminar on Leonardo Da Vinci with the hardened inmates. The words Brown puts in their mouths positively fail the laugh test. Let's just say Brown is quite clearly not a dutiful researcher of the relevant vernacular. These scenes thankfully end quickly, but the awkwardly constructed dialogue between Langdon and the female lead is relentless, inducing Richter-scale cringing at the mere contemplation of the inevitable sex scene (which Brown mercifully leaves to the imagination but which shall certainly figure more prominently in the movie, should one be made). Yet the dialogue is for the most part not at all flirtatious and is most frustrating when written in the same formal narrative tone as a history textbook. This is the device Brown uses whenever he must give readers some background on Da Vinci or early Christianity. Rather like the know-it-all scientist figure in every Michael Crichton novel, Langdon or another character appears periodically to succor readers with dry soliloquies that also serve as the Cliffs Notes to the stale revelations of the upcoming chapter. Despite the bad writing and deus-ex-machina quality of these diversions, some are actually fairly interesting and probably the only motivation available to actually finish the book, since the "suspense" is largely illusory. Each of the numerous plot twists is predictable fifty to a hundred or more pages in advance, so much so that it would be hard to identify which developments Brown intended to be surprises but for his narrative intervention: Brown kindly informs us that a character is "stunned" or "speechless" whenever he unleashes such impotent bombshells, apparently to compensate for his failure to arouse these emotions in readers. Worse still, when one looks to the supposed mystery at the heart of the novel, one realizes that "there is no there there." So much of the mystery unravels from the characters talking to one another -- and so little from their actually doing anything -- that by the end it seems the book would not have been substantially different if Langdon had simply stayed in his hotel room and conducted a lecture into a Dictaphone. Most of the lectures concern the secret society bearing the ominous appellation "The Priory of Sion," but if the plot has any credibility the Priory utterly failed to keep anything secret, since every character knows all there is to know about it (and constantly tells us). That's adequate if one approaches The Da Vinci Code as a fictionalized historical essay, for whatever that's worth, but as a suspense novel it fails. By the end Brown has little to reveal that he hasn't already told us, and the suspense concludes not with a bang but a whimper.
Rating: 
Summary: inflamatory hooey
Review: Mr. Brown has gone on record saying that the assertions he makes in this book regarding the conspiratorial influence of the Catholic church are accurate. His "research", however, is
based almost entirely on dubious accounts. What scholarly information he does use is taken out of context and spun to support laughable conclusions. I found Mr. Brown's suggestions concerning the repression of the "sacred feminine" chauvinistic at best and just plain goofy. I am not a Catholic, but if I were I would be offended and troubled by this inflamatory hokum. It strikes me as the kind of trash that fuels intolerence and persecution.
Rating:
Summary: Does Not Live Up To The Hype
Review: I was in the mood for a very entertaining book to read over the weekend. I wanted something that really kept me turning the pages but didn't require me to think too much. I thought "The Da Vinci Code" would be the book to fill the bill. It wasn't. While every chapter did end with a "cliffhanger," the plot is so simplistic and hackneyed (and improbable) that any intelligent reader knows what's coming next. In addition, the writing itself was bad, making the book more than a little irritating to read. I will give Brown this, there was no "fat" in his prose, but there were several glaring grammar mistakes that almost made me throw the book aside. I don't care if an author isn't writing literary fiction; there's simply no excuse for a grammar mistake in a book. It's an insult to any reader. Where this book really fell short for me (as if plot and bad writing aren't enough) was in the area of characterization. Both Sophie and Robert were despicable and totally one-dimensional. And could there possibly be a more stupid member of the French Judicial Police than Sophie? I don't think so. This is a woman who probably couldn't have graduated high school, let alone work as a cryptologist. The plot twists were way to easy. I knew the secret bank number immediately and the identity of The Teacher is also quite easy to figure out. Let's just say that you'll know him as soon as he's introduced. No surprises there. I don't know a lot about the Holy Grail, the Priory of Sion, etc., so if Brown got his facts wrong, it didn't bother me. More knowledgeable readers might be offended, though. Had I been knowledgeable about the Priory, I think I would have been. I'm a Catholic as well, but this book didn't do anything to offend my faith. Frankly, it was too silly to be offensive. Ultra-conservative Catholics might be better off avoiding the book, however. I was far more offended by the bad writing and terrible characterization. The more I think about this book, the more time passes since my reading of it, the more I dislike it. Shame on Dan Brown for not perfecting the art and craft of novel writing before writing one. And shame on those who hyped this book to high heaven. It's not worth it and I've sworn off Dan Brown for good.
Rating:
Summary: Why do I bother?
Review: Good reading makes for good debate. If a book can challenge your faith, it's either a really good book or you have some issues to work out. So, it's funny that when this author of fiction expresses views that run contrary to popular religion, the zealots will scream blasphemy-it's a heretical book to be avoided by Christians! In the same breath they encourage people to open their minds...but only to the teachings of Christ, the bible and the church. (I'm not sure in what order; I'm still trying to sort through the inconsistencies that each present.) Apparently the sources of divine inspiration run in limited quantities and can only be found in select locations. Good god, if some are that stirred by this book it's got to be amazing, right? Well, it's a good read. But the real mystery is why some are so offended by this book and author. You would think that someone is coming to take their children....or their faith, perhaps. You won't find the answer to life in this book. Then again, i suspect that you won't find it in any other book (ohh, how blasphemous!) including the latest from Dr. Phil (double blasphemy!) But that's not why you are reading this book. It's a novel! OK, just calm down you nuts. No, it's not the author's main purpose is to cast doubt on the validity of the Christian faith. (I cannot profess first hand knowledge of this.) And if the church and bible cannot withstand the First Amendment, good luck surviving the test of time (and faith). No one in his right mind is going to make a religion out of this book. But if they do, I'll join it, if for no other reason than to stir up the debate, and expose insecurity and lack of faith.
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