Rating: 
Summary: A serious disappointment
Review: My sister, an avid reader as I am, said, "You've GOT to read this book!" She failed to see it as fiction, and thought it was based on real secret research. (And she is an intelligent reader and great lover of thrillers.) This book ranks with The Red Tent in seriously disappointing books. The story is based on an old, old heresy the Catholic school kids used to share on the back of the school bus--that Jesus had an affair with Mary Magdalene. It takes the story a bit further than the nuns did (who may have shared that story just to make Jesus more 'human' and appealing to their students), suggesting that a daughter born of that liason inherited Jesus's Genes or something like that. It's not clear. Brown may have intended to appeal to feminists with the premise that the early Christian church was headed by Mary Magdalene, after Christ ascended, and that some young woman of her line still exists as a secret leader of the underground Christian church, but this idea is so fuzzily presented as to look like a ploy to appeal to women readers. I found it insulting. Like the much - touted Red Tent book, this is presented in a great cloud of detail, some of which adds to the fiction, most of which drags it down. It is hard to keep focused on the point of the story. It gets hard to even identify the point of the story. And, as with The Red Tent, it was a passable story until about mid-way, then it falls flat -- just too stupid to merit the hype. I did finish the book. I wanted to see whether it got better later. It didn't. It was lame at best, and a waste of time. One star is really too high a score for this tale.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating puzzles, mediocre writing
Review: Something about symbols in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, that's what I heard about this book. It was said to be an erudite mystery. That alone was not enough to keep it at the top of the bestselling lists for over a year, so I decided to see what all the fuss was about. My first, and a lasting, impression of THE DA VINCI CODE is of utterly graceless, styleless writing. Sentences, though mostly grammatical, clunked about like a bag of rusty old plumbing parts. Here is the author's idea of character development: our hero looks like Harrison Ford. Back stories are inserted regularly, like someone heaving rocks off a moving truck. And we begin with the death of a contemporary curator at the Louvre, who, shot in the stomach, has the presence of mind to realize that while loss of blood won't kill him, leaking stomach acids will in about 15 minutes, so in the time left to him he strips, uses his own blood to leave several lines of an encoded message devised on the spot, draws a circle and lies in it, and voila, becomes a facsimile of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. After a while, say after the first 200 pages or so, that death scene no longer seems so very incredible. Things finally begin to take off as the symbology and codes that had been variously meted out begin to come together in a cannily connected vision of an alternative Christian history, one that has antecedents in generations of historical research. Dan Brown did his homework. It's that part that makes this book matter; otherwise it is a thriller that reads more like the description of an action movie than an actual novel. It's like riding in an old Jeep off road at 80 MPH without seatbelts or shock absorbers. As for the denouement: it is a lot better, more credible than that in THE INSTANCE OF THE FINGERPOST, another "erudite" entertainment that had a lot of good writing going for it but cheated big time with a climax that gave new meaning to deus ex machina. Brown gets himself out of his box in one piece, without stepping on too many sensitive toes and without entirely selling out his research and its premises. His puzzles are fun, if not a little obvious at times, and it is no doubt for those that this book continues to bob at the top of the bestselling lists.
Rating:
Summary: Good idea, mediocre writing, lazy editing
Review: This has all the makings of a bestseller (mystery, conspiracy, murder, romance), but the quality of the writing handicaps this book. Although Brown obviously scoured books and other sources to piece together his plot, he ought to have put the same effort into studying the general layout of Paris and the psychology of her people. Although it might look great in a movie, it's not physically possible to drive into the Tuileries Gardens from the direction the hero, Langdon, did in Chapter 4 (It's ringed by a twelve-foot wall on that side; there are switchback steps of course, but....). I am also unsure of why the DCPJ officer who drove Langdon from the Ritz to the Louvre left the hotel (located in Place Vendome) drove past Opera Garnier and then back through Vendome before actually heading toward the Louvre. And during Langdon's and Sophie's escape from the Louvre in Chapters 32 and 33, they might have saved an awful lot of time and actually made it to the Embassy before the DCPJ officers if they had just driven straight down rue de Rivoli (which becomes avenue Gabriel at the same exact place where the Embassy is located)...and when Sophie "cuts sharply past the luxurious Hotel de Crillon," had she looked to her left, she might have seen the Embassy just on the other side of the (very small) street, a whole lot closer than "less than a mile away." (Brown is also not quite up with the times; it took several references to a "rotary" before I realized he was talking about a "roundabout" and the heroine's "SmartCar" is generally referred to as a "Smart.") There are many symbols of France, and to a symbologist, perhaps, the Eiffel Tower would reign supreme, but not in the opinion of the general Frenchman-in-the-street. As far as Brown's general writing, I kept forgetting that Sophie was French, because her dialogue was written in American vernacular, and I had trouble imagining that Langdon felt anything more than brotherly toward her (her patronized her, he protected her, he educated her...hmmm, strange chauvanistic behaviour for a believer in the sacred goddess...but he never seemed to truly be attracted to her.)The protaganist, Robert Langdon, "senses" things at least twenty times in the first 100 pages when Brown should have been more precise, allowing his character to see, hear, guess, assume, deduct or even *know* those very same things. As other people have mentioned, the (non)religious aspects of this book are rehashed, centuries-old heresies and conspiracies, but I wouldn't have minded so much if I hadn't wasted my time reading such a poorly edited book. I wonder how many unpublished authors with outstanding manuscripts were turned down so that Doubleday could pour money into marketing "The Da Vinci Code"? Skip this book. If you're interested in the Holy Grail, the sacred goddess, or any of the other fringe religion aspects of this book, you could find the information much more quickly by doing a search on the internet...and it would probably be a better read.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting .. a little dissapointing at the end.
Review: I looked at this book as purely a piece of fiction to enjoy. It doesnt matter to me if there are facts present in this book or not. They never mattered anyway ;-) I found the book fast-paced and very exciting for the first half. It was almost like a roller coaster ride. You do pause sometimes to think whether the author is quoting a fact or just cooking something up at times. The search for the Holy Grail kept me engrossed till the end and when I finally got through the final pages, it left me a little dissapointed with the end .. but at the same time I give credit to the author that he actually built that momentum and expectation. Its quite an enjoyable piece of fiction ... it wont dissapoint u if you prefer to just let it be what it is.
Rating: 
Summary: Mixed feelings
Review: Yes, this book is a page turner. Yes, it is a somewhat interesting read for someone who knows very little about religion but is always eager for information (but not stupid enough to take anything in this book as fact). But I have mixed feelings about this book. While the "historical" descriptions are good and left me wanting more, the "story" gets tiresome and by the end I really didn't care much for the characters and had pretty much figured out that the "grail" was not going to be delivered by the last page, which seems pointless in a fiction book, where anything is possible. I also found the writing very simple and hurried, as if the author had too much story and too little pages. It flowed nicely, but it was never all-involving or had me completely engrossed. The situations were all together very much contrived. I never feared for the characters because, alas! they were able to escape at the last minute! About twenty times through the whole book! If you have a passing curiosity about religion and art history then I would recommend this book. If you have a fervent curiosity I would look for other worthier sources. This is definitely a short, somewhat forgetable read aside from the subject matter and is not worth the hype.
Rating:
Summary: Pass on The Da Vinci Code
Review: Initially I was drawn to this book because it been a best seller for so long. As a born-again christian, I was deeply hurt by this book. It just breaks my heart to see blashamy go so main stream.
Rating:
Summary: Inflammatory and inaccurate
Review: First this is an insult to Christians and I do not recommend books that attack the faith of others. More importantly the misuse of facts in mind numbing. He blatantly misrepresents dozens of facts to make them fit into his story. The reason I like Clancey novels is the reason I hated this one. It is worse than make-believe.
Rating: 
Summary: Engrossing...couldn't put it down
Review: A terrific and suspensful "novel" which takes the reader through the twists and turns of a 2,000 year old mystery playing out in todays high tech environment. This is a great "story"...foget the hype about what it says or doesn't say about Christianity and the hypersensitive who can't handle any criticism fictional or otherwise. Dan Brown has not said anything in this book that others have not said for centuries, he just does in a great, readable, and enjoyable format. It's a great book and a great read.
Rating:
Summary: Best educational fiction book
Review: I'm not a reader of fiction books, but The Da Vinci Code is an exception. The combination of facts and fiction in this book should keep any reader intrigued. I read this book at the time of Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" release. Needless to say, two widely opposing views were presented in Gibson's and Brown's account of Christ's life. I was a little put off by the constant twists and turns in The Da Vinci Code, but this is characteristic of a murder mystery novel, I suppose. The ideas in Dan Brown's book can further be explored in "Bloodline of the Holy Grail", and countless other investigative books and articles written on the subject.
Rating:
Summary: Clearly he has found the truth
Review: I have always known that religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) were simply made up by humans to control others. This book explains in a whirlwind suspense fashion approaching pure joy how obvious the synthetic nature of organized religion actually is. Long live the goddess!
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