Rating: 
Summary: locks you down
Review: Being a Christian and a student of science, both this book and Angels&Demons were extremely captivating to me. Even setting the subject aside, the storyline/plot alone was incredibly attention-grabbing. Although i loved both books, i read this one faster than Angels&Demons. But i'm not sure if it was because this is a tiny bit more suspenseful or because I read this one first, and the novelty of Dan Brown's writing and style caused me to not be able to put it down. However Angels&Demons' story line was a bit more complex than the Da Vinci Code, and less predictable too. I had my suspicions of who the culprit was in this book but when the culprit was revealed in Angels&Demons, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Some people might be annoyed with the author's attention to details, namely, facts of history and art. I never enjoyed history in school, or any other liberal arts subject matters, but I feel his explanations and details necessary and served as the backbone of the storyline. These two fiction novels were surprisingly educational and I was glad to have learned so much after each reading. Part of what makes these books so great is that they contains so many facts the average person wouldn't know, and these ground the stories and prevented me from thinking that the events happening were too outrageous / unbelievable. Don't start these books if you can't afford to lose sleep /put off whatever you were supposed to do for a couple of hrs.
Rating: 
Summary: a realistic point of view from long island
Review: Being a man of worldly travel stature and reading the book from an objective point of view(that means non-bias). I felt that this book was in a whole minus the conclusion worth the 25 dollars I paid for it. This is with out a doubt one of those books that you cant put down. Each chapter leaves you wondering, what happens next? or I cannot believe that just happened! However the conclusion I found less then up to par... read but do not expect the finish of a life time. Priests and historians beware, I have researched both views for almost 3 months and niether side will be completely content with the contents of this book. Catholics because of some of the ideals, and historians because of the elaboration of ideas... overal this book should be read and disscussed though. It puts a question into light... what would we do if modern day christianity tottally vanished. In my opinion, CHAOS. read the book mates.
Rating: 
Summary: Puzzled at the hype
Review: Being a writer myself, I can only surmise that after reading this, and listening to it as an audio book just to make sure I wasn't being unfair, that Dan Brown must have a huge following of fans. It reads like a first novel, and I am surprised that so many people find it "enthralling". The dialogue is horrendous, the narrative is pedestrian, and the writing overall seems remarkably amateurish for a celebrated novelist. It reads like a book he wrote years ago, hid in a closet, got well known, then brought it out and dusted it off to present it to his agent and publisher. I wrote better than this when I was in the 3rd grade. His prediliction to repeat sentences and phrases over and over again is annoying, as if the reader is mentally challenged and didn't get it the first time. It is an insult to a reader to "write down" to your audience. It just goes to show that perserverance pays off in the publishing world. If any other writer had tried to peddle this manuscript, they would have racked up truckloads of rejection slips, and been told to take elementary writing classes, in addition to "get an imagination". This writing is almost as bad as Danielle Steele, another publishing miracle.
Rating:
Summary: I don't review, just opinions
Review: Being anavid reader I do not understand the popularity of this book. It is a good book and if its handy read it. There are so many books in fantasy fiction as well as fiction that are a better read than this that do not get the aclaim that is due. The general public, as a whole, do not read. Given that; friends tell there friends, "Hey read this, its great." The public do not have a basis for suggested reading. Pulp fiction like Grisham and best sellers are the rule, sadly. I read this book a year ago and I still here bookstore sellers touting this book. I gave it four stars, its a good book. It would not be in my top 100 best reads. Forgive me for this odd review. Needed to get an issue off my chest.(bad axiom)
Rating: 
Summary: Eh...
Review: Besides boring you with the background of the author / book, the details of which most of you know already, I'll start out with the positives. As far as mystery novels go, I suppose this is average. I don't know enough about the genre to accurately criticize, but I know that I had to keep reading to discover the answer / solution to any of the given puzzles presented. At the worst, you can say it's brain candy. Some of them you could see a mile away, other ones you would need to be steeped in the esotericity of secret societies (assuming they exist as Brown presents them). It got tedious after a while, because Brown put a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter, and THERE ARE OVER ONE HUNDRED OF THEM. Anyone being punched in the jaw repeatedly and with such frequency would start to lose feeling. The ending, which most people have a problem with because it's open-ended (stupid Hollywood ruins everything) was interesting. I won't go into the glaring historical and religious inaccuracies that are obvious to most people who retained their Sunday school lessons. More learned people give apt criticism on amazon.com. My gripe is with Brown's premises themselves. To Brown, everything in the world has pagan origins. Any conceivable geometric shape (even triangles and circles, the number 2, and the iambic pentameter are somehow pagan? Yeah, he went there), number, name, painting, architechture style , flower, my boogers, can all be traced back to prehistoric tree-hugging nymphomaniacs. Besides the fact that this assumption is horribly wrong, there is a faulty conclusion you can draw from this. If everything is of pagan origin, then you're probably going to assume that anything that comes after that is a perversion of the the pagan worldview. This is especially true if you have a huge anti-Christian bias like Brown does (he throws Christianity a bone near the end, clerically absolving the Catholic church of any wrongdoing in the books event...gee, thanks). In Brown's world, that would mean a ham sandwiches and window panes are offensive to paganism, by the very fact that it came after. The other option, instead of being a symbolic pervert, is that, in using the symbols, you are secretly passing its original (pagan) meaning. Neverminding the fact that this destroys the meaning of what a symbol is entirely, Brown's world looks like this: 1- Everyone uses symbols.
2- All symbols have a pagan origin.
3- If you use a symbol, you are either perverting the original pagan meaning, or passing on its original meaning secretly.
4- Jay just drew a circle.
5- A circle is a symbol.
6- Pagans used the circle to represent the sun.
7- Therefore, Jay is either perverting paganism or passing on the pagan idea of the sun (and so are thousands of unwitting children in the classrooms of the world). On page 172, Brown's narrator say that one of the perils of being a symboligist (someone who studies symbols, a somewhat fictitious career) is that you can make connections where there are none. Brown destroys his premise with this one sentence. Inconsistencies aside, the other irritants in this book are Brown's obvious stereotyping, and hangups with Christianity. All of the college students in his protagonists classes are horny frat boys or women pining away to be considered literal goddesses. He equates Christianity with Catholicism, and takes the usual cheap shots (pedophile priests, the Inquisition, "secret murders", etc.). Brown plays religions like a syncretistic proto-feminist's wet dream, hoping that someday all faiths can agree (*yawn*). This, combined with lousy character development, makes for bad art. Read it for its suspense and as an alternate, pagan wishful-thinking reality, but disregard all of the historical, symbolic, and logical inaccuracies.
Rating:
Summary: Mesmerizing!
Review: Besides going deep into the history of Mary Magdalene and her relationship with Jesus Christ, Dan Brown uncovers the mysterious and secret, religious Catholic sect: Opus Dei. I had often heard similar rumors about their bizarre religous beliefs and this book confirms many of them. The DaVinci Code is carefully researched and the author has taken the time to include specific facts and details, which makes it all the more fascinating, e.g. the history of the tarot cards and astrology. I learned so much while being fully entertained. This was my first book that I've read by this author and I plan to read his other books as soon as possible. The mathematical & word puzzles are a delight. Women of all ages will adore this book because the author confirms what we have known all along: women are sacred. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: entertaining
Review: besides the overdone plot twist, i really enjoyed the history behind the fiction. it was a definite eye opener and great introduction to art and the dark side of religion.
Rating:
Summary: Take an alternative view
Review: Besides the story in this book was about christianity , I found the symbols described in the book are both informative and fascinating. The author provided elaborate details on many symbols that we all familiar with. I was amazed to learn the meanings of so many interesting and famous symbols that I was unable to decode before. As for the facts about religion mentioned in this book, they are certainly constroversial. I think the author was inclined to do this. He provided facts that he found from researches, and he included a lot of his own perspective and opinons. Then, he left them for the reader to think about them. Overall, I think the book was absolutely worth reading. Not only the story is fascinating, but also it allow me to gain a whole new insight of the world surrounding us. I do agreed one thing. When the first scientist (human) said that the earth was a round,circle shape, all the people thought that person was insane. No one believed him at the time because people were told by what should be believed in and what shouldn't. In other words, we are often influence by what our society wants us to believe. What I am trying to say is, something that we think does not exist today, its existence might be proven some time later. I hope anyone who read this book will enjoy as much as I do.
Rating:
Summary: wow
Review: best book ever, lots goin on, page turner - once u start u cant stop, full of cool facts. im gunna read it a second time. Awsome for anyone
Rating:
Summary: DAVINCI CODE and MURDER IN KEY WEST my favs for this year.
Review: Between Dan Brown's ultra-complex religious puzzler DA VINCI CODE and my copy of Freeman's MURDER IN KEY WEST, I feel I've gotten more than a year's worth of primo reading material in the past two months--and we're not even through Christmas yet! DA VINCI CODE is a great 'what's next' mystery, with enough twists, turns, and iconoclasm to satisfy any whodunnit reader and irritate any priest without a sense of humor. Immensely entertaining and thought-provoking. Also recommended: Freeman's MURDER IN KEY WEST. Alan Duffy, NYC Attorney.
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