Rating: 
Summary: Less Suspense than Anticipated
Review: While this was a decent book, I found it lacking after Angels and Demons. A&D gripped me in a page-turning suspense with unseen twists. DVC seemed like it was trying too hard to make a point, and followed a rather well-known and over-used suspense plot. I was annoyed to be able to figure out most of the story well before the ending. Also lacking in this book was the relationship between the Langdon and his lead woman. It seems forced at the end and has very little throughout the story to imply anything should happen. This is a huge disappointment after the portrayal of the perfect "Indiana Jones-style" lusting in A&D. While I would still (hesitantly) recommend this book, I would suggest being prepared for a disappointment after the first Robert Langdon journey, which I would highly recommend to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Fiction, at it's Best
Review: Dan Brown, brings together the best of fiction and nonfiction in "The DaVinci Code." The book has a well-developed suspenseful plot, fully developed characters and a strong sense of place--in short, it is believable though we know it is fiction. The pace is quick, making for an exciting read. The way Brown folds in unique discoveries that many of us were unaware of makes the book inspirational and leads us to educate ourselves through additional reading on the topic. Those who are open-minded enough to admit that history isn't alway perfect or truthful will be fascinated to find that there are alternative theories concerning the life of Christ and Mary Magdalene, whether those match your beliefs or not. Personally, this has led to reading more Gnostic texts of an older vintage, an investigation of the tenets of the Gnostic church as well as reading the books that probably inspired Brown, including "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," "The Woman of the Alabaster Jar" and similar titles. It a rare that a work of fiction leading to so much discussion, debate and other reading, is also so popular that it stays on the bestseller list for 49 weeks and counting--kudo's to Dan Brown!
Rating: 
Summary: Waste of time and money
Review: I am a PhD in philosophy, well-acquainted with art and ecclesiastical history, literature and theology. The plot is foolish, it is weak and contrived, and the characters are cartoons. Any soi-disant 'research' done in preparation for writing this book could've been better accomplished though Classics Comics. Theological inconsistencies abound, such as a root question: why might such a preposterous ruse ever have been initiated in the first place? I noted that Brown refers to Leonardo as 'DaVinci,' a nomenclature never used by art historians, who refer to him as 'Leonardo.' The representation of Opus Dei was patently fabricated ab ovo, bearing no relation to the real entity; this is the case whether one loves or loathes the prelature in question. As is also the case with his other work, Brown is at it again making a fast dollar from a gullible and uncultivated public.
Rating:
Summary: Written in a language I think he believes to be English...
Review: Why did I read "The Da Vinci Code?" First, a couple of friends suggested that I do so. One had begun reading it, and recommended it; the other had had it recommended to her, and wanted me to do the dirty work. Second, I noticed that it was incredibly popular. There were 91 hold requests on it at the local public library. I found a copy on the shelf at the university library, which was recalled the day after I checked it out, but that left me time to read it. Third, what I heard about it made it sound suspiciously familiar, but I couldn't be sure unless I read it myself. So I did. I wasn't expecting "literature", contrary to what one of the other two thousand-plus reviewers said. It was marketed as a thriller, and high literature rarely makes it onto the middlebrow New York Times best-seller lists unless Oprah recommends it. But even with my lowered expectations, I was startled at how bad the writing was. Dan Brown is no John LeCarre, but he isn't even grand-master hack Lawrence Block. Brown's somewhere down there with, say, David Baldacci, whose "Absolute Power" I once read with similar incredulity. (Those who think "The Da Vinci Code" is the worst book ever written should try "Absolute Power." Or something by Rita Mae Brown.) I know little about art history, or the geography of Paris. But I'm pleased to see that Brown's factual inaccuracy wasn't limited to matters Biblical. The notion that Jesus wasn't considered "the son of God" by Christians until after 300, for instance, is absurd. How "the son of God" was interpreted changed, but the terminology is at least as early as the apostle Paul. Brown clearly thinks that the Dead Sea Scrolls were Christian writings (nope, they were pre-Christian Jewish.) The Nag Hammadi "Gnostic" writings, far from challenging Jesus' divinity, exalt it even more. They certainly don't show him as a human prophet. I'm no fan of Christianity in any of its forms, but Brown's fantasies are an embarrassment to any well-informed infidel. That so many reviewers here claim that they've never run into these ideas before just shows how ill-informed most Christians are. Brown's theories are derivative from start to finish. (Except maybe for his tribute to Walt Disney as a modern Da Vinci, an artistic genius of the same rank, a devout Goddess-worshipper secretly trying to keep the Divine Feminine Principle alive in his masterworks like "The Little Mermaid.") ...
Rating:
Summary: Gross lack of research
Review: For a book which purports to spout realistic theories about the Holy Grail, this singularly lacks research. I cannot in all honesty say anything about the fundamental hypothesis, but living in Paris I can certainly say something about the setting. It is obvious that the author has not made some very basic efforts.
For instance, you cannot hope to go to Lille from Gare Saint Lazare; you would have to leave from Gare du Nord. In the same vein, I would much like to know how the heroes manage to find several taxies waiting in Saint Lazare at roughly three in the morning. There are no trains at this late hour, so there would be no taxis. And it goes on and on. To go from Tuileries to the American Embassy, you would not not need to go up rue des Champs Elysees, since the embassy is exactly at the beginning of that street.
You would think that the author would at least have bothered to pick up a map when writing the book. If that is all the extent of his research on Paris, I refuse to believe he has done serious work on the other aspects of the book.
This novel is a joke.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: I don't have much time to read but managed to make it through this book. I like my books simple and this book is as simple as you are going to get. It dragged in a few spots, but all of the symbolism and the secret society references were intriguing.
Rating:
Summary: What's the hoopla about?
Review: I must admit I enjoyed reading the book, one of those guilty pleasures. Sure it is mostly nonsense, a dumbed down version of Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, but it makes for a nice beach read. Why it has become such is runaway bestseller is a mystery. Perhaps a clue can be found in some lost Da Vinci masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Overrated / Unoriginal
Review: If you've read Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, you'd wonder why he published this book again, but changed the title to "The DaVinci Code". It's the same story!! I was intrigued when I first read Angels and Demons, and generally enjoyed the story. It is really best suited for airplane reading, etc. I would have liked DaVinci Code if I hadn't read its "prequal". I like the basis for the story, but got very sick of Dan Brown's admiration for himself, as he obviously portrays himself as the main character. I'd rather read about general research on the topic of symbology, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Highly overrated
Review: This book should have been a screen play. It would (or will) be a blockbuster movie, but the book lags, the characters are cardboard, and the plot development is uninteresting. However, the ideas and history behind the book are exciting. I had neither considered many of the symbols in art history before nor have I thought that the holy grail might be a person and not the cup of Christ. This is a quick read, but the writing quality isn't good enough to make this a classic.
Rating:
Summary: Great Plot Distracted By Poor Writing, Historic Absurdities
Review: If you want a page turner for the sake of a page turner, this is it, but not much more. It's got the start-to-finish chase sequence that makes it exciting, and plenty of twists to catch the puzzling reader. The complex plot weaves the reader from start to finish adequately. Annoyingly, the author uses 3-page "chapters" from start to finish, ending virtually each one with a sort of cliff hanger -- the mechanism became tiresome very quickly. But if you want a page turner with genuine historic substance and truth, this isn't it, though it seems to purport to be based on truth. If you want theological fairness (in this paganistic sort-of theological novel), or well developed characters, or believable dialogue, you're looking in the wrong place. I found myself rolling my eyes WAY too many times to appreciate the book, and was distracted far too frequently than impressed. Parts of it seemed preachy from a wierd pagan / female godess perspective. Annoying (and academically dishonest, it seemed). The slams on Chrisianity and the Bible were so overwhelming it was dizzying. The narrator takes the obvious perspective that there was no true virgin birth, no divine Christ, no Christian truth (only historic, self-interested, niave barbarism), and force-feeds it to the reader in the context of what purports to be significant scientific and historic fact. Imagine going on line and gathering up a bucketfull of unsubstantiatied conspiracy theories about the Holy Grail and catholic domination, and weaving them into a complex murder mystery, then you've pretty much got the book in a nutshell. The science and the history are suggested as truth, but are contrived, at best. Knowing that, it made the characters, and the story, unbelievable. Regarding the writing, if you enjoy reading phrases like "his jaw dropped!" over and over and over and over as an immature substitute for more imaginative and thoughtful prose, this book is for you. One character "winks" all the time while another constantly "flashes" (angry, inhospitable, surprised, confused, dumbfounded, etc.) looks at diferent moments. At one point (flashback) a hardened criminal shouts "holy crap!," and Ivy League men "giggle" when they talk about sex in class. The characters were themselves cartoons. You get Hallmark/sappy flasbacks of one character (as she reflects at convenient moments into her relationship with her now-dead grandfather) as the only real attempt at character development. (She had vague syrupy recollections of childhood moments with grandpa that came into focused perfect memory each time some crucial detail was necessary in the puzzle. The characters were distractingly undeveloped and instead shaped into good guys and bad guys by characature. Example: Opening scene includes a now-adult arrmed albino with red eyes, who had grown up a street thug - parentless of course - enjoying the prolonged death of our elderly murder victim; leaving him alone to die in agony rather than finishing him off, and of course allowing the victim to leave a secret message that becomes the central puzzle (or at least the first puzzle) to the whole yarn. Or do I mean yawn? Invariably, the characters have perfect and ingenious insight or recall at just the right moments, exceding Sherlock Holmes in brilliance but lacking all charm or intrigue. I began thrilled with the excitement of the book and was just glad to get it over by the time I finished it. Bottom lines:
complex plot = 9/10
characters interesting = 2/10
believable dialogue = 1/10
belieavable (i.e., accurate) background information = 0/10
believable storyline = 2/10
fun read = only if you can take the Christian bashing and pagan preachiness and enjoy a surface approach to storytelling.
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