Rating: 
Summary: Christians Beware
Review: The first half of the book is well-written and very interesting. Beyond that, I couldn't finish what I thought was a great thriller. In good conscience, I couldn't keep reading beyond the blasphemy of Christianity and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I sent my copy to the dump.
Rating: 
Summary: OVER-RATED
Review: The first half of the book progresses rather well. It is suspenseful and you might not put it down until well past your bedtime... but only the first night. It contains little tidbits of arcane knowledge, the kind of which you can show-off with. Like for example, the author points out that Leonardo was totally in touch with his feminine side, gay in fact, and also that he painted-in Mary Magdalene (Jesus' supposed wife) on Jesus' right-hand side in The Last Supper. Go ahead and look, there IS a female there! A master artist wouldn't make a mistake like that on accident. On page 4 you read of a mysterious killer shooting the curator of du musée du Louvre in the belly with one bullet. The killer tries to shoot him again but his gun is now empty. Why is it empty? Anyway he leaves the old man there to die and walks right out of the most famous museum in the world with no problem.
So the dying old man starts scrambling to leave clues about his secret before he croaks. The author tells us that it is very very important that the curator carry on his knowledge or else the old man's secret society will be no more. That's the bait. And so I read every chance I got, even though the book ran dry after the first hundred pages. Then on page 444, near the end, I read that another cult member says that the death of the leaders of Freemasonry is not a big deal because... "There are always those waiting to move up and rebuild" Well, you can imagine my disappointment after reading that! If there is no race against time to save the curator's secret then why was I made to feel anxious?!?
Rating:
Summary: Good beginning, horrible ending
Review: The first half of the book was great. The second half was horrible. Too contrived, to predictable, how could they not get the codes? The first thing I did was look at the writing in the mirror because the script flowed right-to-left instead of left-to-right. How could they not get that? And as for the last code, I got it with about 2 minutes of looking at it, but these guys have to go all over Europe trying to figure it out. The characters are completely unbelievable. They are all supercharacters, then they can't decipher the codes! And the very end was moronic. If the grail really was where Langdon thought it was, don't you think SOME construction worker, electrician, etc etc who had to move the thing would wonder why all they went to all that effort and there was nothing on display? Of COURSE someone would have talked. And wouldn't someone, somewhere, have made the connection that the leader of the Louvre and most power secret society and the leader of the church where the grail is supposed to be hid were married? Just dumb. This book gets two stars because Brown can write coherent sentences, but as for any semblance of plausibility it gets 0 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Wow--Fun & Interesting
Review: The first quesiton I asked myself on finishing this book was: how did I miss Angels & Demons, Dan Brown's first book featuring Robert Langdon, the protagonist of The Da Vinci Code? I enjoyed this novel so much--more than I expected to--that I was disappointed that I didn't have all the background. Seriously, what's not to like about this book?--a smart and engaging main character surrounded by a cast of equally engaging friends and enemies; secret societies and the secret lives of historical figures like Newton and Victor Hugo; a plot pushed forward by decipherable clues as simple as anagrams and as complex as the hidden meaning of Da Vinci art; the meaning of religious "artifacts" like the Holy Grail; the meaning of religion itself. It all makes for an irresistible combination. And Brown, though not perhaps the most adept prose stylist, does a good job of getting us through the twists and turns in an enjoyable fashion. Of course, comfortable in my catholicism, I enjoy speculative novels like this. I can wonder about the truth of religion without feeling my religion or myself is being attacked. Plus, my reading has made me familiar already with many of the arguments Brown makes. But if you are the type of person who is uncomfortable with writing that brings into question some of the basic tenets of Christianity, stay away from this novel. You will not enjoy it. But if you want a thrilling ride that also will make you stop and think about some things you thought you knew, this is a book to be read.
Rating: 
Summary: May take some discipline to finish, but well worth it.
Review: The flow of the story was a bit choppy and occasionally drained my interest to continue. However, I managed to finish and I must say that the pace picks up around the last 150 pages. It's a great lesson in symbols and code breaking intertwined with art and biblical history involving secret societies. Overall, it is intellectually worthwhile and entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Bah
Review: The Gods of Eden has better history than this. That one does actually include the UFOs.
Rating: 
Summary: TREV NV Z YIVZP!
Review: The good news is that it is a heck of a fun read. The author's storytelling skills keep the reader in suspense page after page. And every little detail counts, so it's fun to anticipate and see how it is used later in the book. Plus, the nuggets of what the Amazon review describes as "esoteria" should help readers in Trivial Pursuit, Jeopardy, and cocktail parties. The bad news is that, as Langdon and Teabing themselves admit, the conspiracy stuff is old news. The "explosive truth" that is guarded as a secret has been alleged for many centuries and has never received popular or academic acceptance, and this is only its latest incarnation and retelling. The author's "genius" is in weaving merely 3 or 4 accepted facts (which he lists in the introduction to the book), with pagan and neopagan beliefs, anti-Catholic conspiracy theories, Knights Templar lore and legend, liberal feminist theology, postmodern critiques, and so on. I sure hope nobody (not one person) takes the allegations in this book for gospel truth. It's a great airplane/airport/vacation read, accompanied with lots of hype. And nothing more. *review title is in atbash, which is one of the parlor games referred to in the book
Rating:
Summary: I got good news, and I got bad news.
Review: The good news: excellent research, interesting premise, intruiging settings, thought -provoking trvia. The bad news: predictable plot, mundane dialouge, tepid characters, one- page "chapters", and an unrealistic timeline. It's difficult to identifiy with the protagonist, who is suddently expected to display an ability towards committment, when no prior examples are shown. Even the antagonists, appear to have come from nowhere. Who are these people ? Other characters appear, make gestures that suggest an actual interest in events, and then walk away or disappear as if recovering from a fugue state. Even foils have to be developed. I was under the impression that references would be made to several of Da Vinci's works, but this was not so. Overall, it is apparent that there are some aspects of history that demand to remain in the past. To transplant them into the present day renders them awkward in a way that is worsened by forced attempts to surround it with a contrived plot. After all is said and done, the reader is still asking "so what?" I better stop here: the more I write, the more stars I end up taking away.
Rating:
Summary: The good news and the bad news
Review: The good news:
It is a riveting, fast-paced thriller, that is hard to put down before one has read it to the end. The bad news:
The book is littered with factual faults. This is obvious to anyone having a rudimentary knowledge of: science, religious-history, geography, Paris, Europe, symbolism, computers, architecture, cars, world-history, aviation, banks etc. The author uses widespread name-dropping in every area instead of doing a more thorough research. Two small examples: How do you put a car with a manual transmission in "Park"? It doesn't make sense. How do you use a computer to calculate a ten digit access code for a bank account? You can't. You have to be narrow-minded to thoroughly enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Review: THE GOOD: The Da Vinci Code has already become a classic, sporting one of the most intricate and engrossing plots ever put to page. The story unfolds over a 24 hour period, and what a story it is! From Paris to London, the main characters are in a race against the French authorities, secret societies, and powerful religious organizations, all to break the codes revealing one of the most explosive secrets in history. It's difficult to praise such a novel without giving away pieces of the mystery, just note that if mystery is indeed what you crave, then Dan Brown's best seller will not dissapoint. The ideas presented in the novel have caused me to research the validity of some of the claims, and has provided me with a list of dozens of non-fiction books that continue the story through the theories put forth by scholars from all over the world. The secret disussed in it's pages are that powerful. THE BAD: My two bits of criticism are directed at the lack of charisma posessed by the characters in the book, and that you sometimes get the feeling that you are reading an ode to Dan Brown's education and research instead of a novel. In a book so plot oriented, it must be hard to provide really interesting characters. And that's exactly one of it's shortfalls. THE UGLY: The reactions of the characters to certain situations is rather ridiculous at times. And after discovering that much of the content/ideas came from non-fiction books already written leaves me questioning the authors creativity a bit. CONCLUSION: Buy this book. It is destined to be a classic, and will be discussed for years to come. I could fill 400+ pages of my own just reviewing this book. It opens up so many doors, leaves so many questions lingering, and provides you with an extremely entertaining read that will leave you breathless. Highly, highly recommended.
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