Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your money!
Review: If you are a catholic, please don't waste your money in a book that calumniates the Catholic Church with all kind of accusations including murder, fraud and others. Even if you are not catholic but Christian or Muslim, you should know that the author denies the celibacy of our Lord Jesus and other truths of our faith.View of Opus Dei is delirious. Although I am not a member I have known Opus Dei quite enough to make me grin when reading a member committing murder or the Opus Dei Prelate involved in the plot. By the was, almost all the text written in Spanish is full of grammar mistakes, perhaps like this review but at least I don't earn my money writing books.
Rating:
Summary: At first glance, brilliant, at second glance.......ugh
Review: I am a teenager and an avid reader who bought this book because of its excellent reviews. I found it to be incredibly exciting as I read it, full of interesting twists and turns and secrets revealed. However, when I recently skimmed several of my favorite passages, I was disappointed to discover that the novel was not nearly as good as I first thought. The "ingenious twists and turns" have a great similarity to the action seen in a thousand cheap thriller novels. Plus, there are certain glaring historical inaccuracies, such as: 1) The book claimed that Jesus was never referred to as divine until a certain council voted on the subject. Not true. Jesus said that he was the son of God, his followers said he was the son of God, and many people believed he was the son of God long before the council. The council was simply to make official what so many people already believed. 2) Langdon refers to Leonardo as a "flamboyant homosexual." Much like Michelangelo, the subject of the great artist's sexual orientation is still under debate. 3) The book seems to regard the presence of...a certain someone...in Leonardo's painting as evidence that....a certain someone....was actually there when the Last Supper took place. Question: How can you use the paintings of a man who lived 1500 years after the event as evidence of "what really happened" at the Last Supper? Basically, though the book is well-written enough to make you overlook many of its flaws, take religous, artistic, and historical statements with several grains of salt. All of what I've said and more is discussed in an article published in the New York Times, if you care to look it up.
Rating: 
Summary: Interact With the Story
Review: I read this book in two days. I found it fun, entertaining, enlightening and a great read. One of the fun things about it is the book is full of riddles and puzzles. When I came to them in the story I tried to solve them before reading on. Some were simply impossible because they were based on locations or situations within the text but others were approachable. It really was thrilling to arrive at an answer, read a few more pages and see if your solution was the "right" one. I got pretty lucky and solved a couple of them. Additionally, because the book is based on historical data it open up new possibilites for the reader to explore while or after reading the book. So have fun, learn a few things and pick up this book.
Rating: 
Summary: An intelligent and coherent thriller
Review: Dan Brown's writing is grabbing, intruding, and entertaining to the end of this book. I definitely plan on buying copies of this book as gifts for friends and family. The Da Vinci Code is an intelligent and coherent thriller.
Rating:
Summary: The French is spelled correctly
Review: For the time-challenged, here is the short version of this review: Highs: the French sentences are correctly spelled. Lows: everything else. Want a more complete picture? Read on, but don't say I didn't warn you. The basic premise of "The Da Vinci Code" is this: an American expert on religious symbology uncovers a conspiracy to eliminate the descendants of Mary Magdalene, who was Jesus Christ's wife. He is aided by a French cryptologist, who happens to be the recent victim's granddaughter, while being chased around by the French police and, naturally, the Catholic Church's hitman. Hero and heroine go through an esoteric version of a treasure hunt involving, more of less in this order: a message written in blood, another message written in invisible ink, a permutation of the Fibonacci sequence, a safe deposit box key, a box with a rose on its lid and a white cylinder with five coded sections inside, an inverted message (in English, despite having been written by a Frenchman, for his French granddaughter), a tomb in London, a smaller cylinder, presumably with a papyrus inside, and here I stop to avoid spoiling the non-climax. Needless to say, this by itself would not carry the story very far but, wait, there's more: did I mention the Catholic Church is dead set against our heroes ever discovering its dirty secret, and therefore they're throwing in their best and brightest to thwart them? Namely: a self-flagellating, gigantic albino with an IQ of around 20, who seems to be perpetually on crack, plus a jet-set American bishop connected with a mysterious "Teacher" (whom I won't reveal, either, lest I spoil this component of the final non-climax as well). And that's it. No Sicilian Mafia, no Spanish Inquisition, no Swiss Guard-sorry, wrong again: there's the French police, perpetually two steps behind everyone else in the story, but speaking lots of correctly spelled French (unlike the Spanish in the book). Characters: you've probably guessed it. Robert Langdom, the hero, is a Harvard version of Indiana Jones. He's an expert in religion, maybe because of his belief that religion is bad for people. At the end, he hasn't changed one iota. Sophie Neveu is the granddaughter of the previous Grand Master of the "Priory of Sion," and this fact is key, because she keeps remembering things her granddad had told her long ago so she could solve the mystery. We're told she's a brilliant cryptologist but her memory, however, is so weak that the necessary clues only come back after pages and pages of mental jogging. As to the villains, I've already mentioned the albino and the bishop; the French police inspector is very French (as in "Casablanca," but without the jokes), which defines him completely. There's also an English scholar, Sir Leigh Teabing, who hides a terrible secret behind his facile demeanor. This secret is definitely not his deep aversion to the Catholic Church, which he expostulates through lengthy lectures. Plotwise, the book follows a treasure hunt structure, with chapters interspersed to show how the villains are getting closer to the heroes. At some point, the albino catches up with them but they disable him easily despite having no weapons (this sort of thing happens again in the non-climax scene, involving another villain that I won't mention). This and the "anima ex machina" interventions by the dead grandfather, who always had the right clue to give but Sophie had somehow forgotten until that very moment, make for very dull reading. Here is a typical page: Langdon and Sophie are stumped by the most recent clue. They talk back and forth for many pages. Then Langdon reveals a piece of the ongoing Catholic conspiracy against the defenders of truth and freedom, and then Sophie remembers something her grandfather had once told her, which leads them to the next clue after maybe using a bit of kindergarten-level cryptography. Rinse. Repeat. As for setting, the whole book has a luscious white-room feel, where the only locations described in any detail are the albino's hideouts. Even street addresses are given for those (they are, apparently, Opus Dei centers, whom anyone can find in a phonebook). After he goes inside, accuracy goes out the window, but what do readers know? Depictions of the albino's self-flagellations are presented at the start, probably to hook the reader, but these too seem taken from medieval stories rather than modern-day practices of corporal mortification. There are lectures on the Priory of Sion and Church's big conspiracy against them, but you can get more depth from a Web search for a fraction of the cost, and I suspect this is precisely all the author did. Style? Every problem imaginable can be found: non-simultaneous present-participle constructions, chopped-up, stilted yet mundane dialog, adverbs galore. It reads quickly, but I suspect this is mainly because you end up skipping a lot so your mind doesn't shut down. All of the above recommends a zero-star rating which, hopefully, Amazon.com will consider after this experience. So, is there something going for "The Da Vinci Code"? Why is it selling so well? Aside from the fact that many best-sellers are manufactured by marketing devices, the most memorable trait of this novel is its pervasive, corrosive attack on the Catholic Church, presented as the ultimate villain, eternal source of slavery, war, ignorance, and everything else bad that's ever happened, and this is probably why so many find it appealing (I find it hard to believe it's because of its elementary plot and shoddy writing). If wallowing in this stuff is what you like, go ahead and read "The Da Vinci Code." It may be boring otherwise, but you'll get your kicks.
Rating: 
Summary: A good diversion for a long trip
Review: It's easy to get lost in this story of religious artifacts and secret societies. The author stays away from romance, for the most part, which is a nice change. This is a classic thriller (minus the token romance) about a secret code related to Leonardo Da Vinci and a secret society that is hiding the Holy Grail, protecting it against the most conservative of Catholics. Ludicrous stuff, but entertaining. The narrator does a fairly good job, but I have a few quibbles. First, the female voice he does is not convincing and may make you laugh out loud. His French accent is not bad, but it is cookie-cutter variety. His British accent needs some work, and his Scottish is, well, not Scottish. He paces the story well, however, and keeps us entertained. In the abridging of the text, a few substantive errors have crept in. For one, the heroine lets slip to another character that her grandfather was involved in the secret society, but later on when she mentions it a second time to the same character he reacts with great surprise. The Da Vinci Code would likely make for a better read than a listen, but it will help pass the hours on the interestate.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent story and a fun read
Review: Dan Brown has the ability of combining fiction and reality resulting in an interesting blend of suspense and intrigue.
The book is filled with facts about ancient artifacts and their coded meanings that really keeps the reader interested.
Whether his facts are correct or not it really dosen't matter. It's just a fun read and a book I feel is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: Shaggy-dog story
Review: Well-written mystery-thriller keeps you involved at the beginning. But it is historically misleading, often inaccurate. You put up with too much overt pagan proselytizing and are let down by an unsatisfying denouement to the mystery of "the Grail." I advise against wasting your time on it. If you have sufficient knowledge of history of art or of religion, you will be aggravated. If you don't, you are likely to be deceived!
Rating:
Summary: Twists and Turns Along the Path to the Grail
Review: A Harvard history professor's research into secret sects symbols funnels into a personal quest for the Holy Grail. There are enough twists and turns to make this book difficult to put down. But there are too many coincidences for my taste to rate five stars.
Rating:
Summary: Highly entertaining
Review: This is really a great book. The plot explores some controversial but intriguing theories (originally published in "Holy Blood, Holy Grail") about Jesus and various secret societies. It's a fun thriller made compulsively readable by Dan Brown's particular style. I'm not surprised that it is such a huge bestseller because there's so much that will appeal to such a wide variety of people (mystery lovers, people who like to read about alternative religious theories, conspiracy theorists). My advice is to read this book - I've recommended it to several people and every one of them has loved it. You might also be interested to know that there is another book with the same protagonist (Robert Langdon) that Brown wrote prior to this one called "Angels and Demons". It too is a great read - just as good as this one.
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