Rating: 
Summary: For History Buffs
Review: If you like to read suspense and have a fondness for history this is a really good book. I loved this book. I don't know if I've ever been able to give a book 5 stars (wish I could find one) but this is one of my favorites. I only think the author dragged it on alittle to long at the end. But one of my fav's. Read it!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Good, not great
Review: If you live in America and haven't been under a bridge the past 8 months, you have no doubt see the Da Vinci Code in stores and heard the raging controversy surrounding the novel. The book has found it's way onto nighttime news programs and sparked controversy in churches, and has reigned over the New York Times best seller list for 40+ weeks. So what's all the fuss about? The sensitive subject matter of the role of Jesus Christ. With renewed secular interest in Christ peaking with Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" the subject matter of "The Da Vinci Code" has struck a chord of interest in many many people around the country. This book has even brought the book "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" written in 1983 back to the top of many best seller lists! Obviously, the Da Vinci Code is making the rounds. The problem I have is that when you look past the controversial subject matter, the book just isn't balanced and parts of it seem downright contrived. If you haven't read Angels and Demons(a superior book in my opinion), the character of Robert Langdon is severely underdeveloped for a main protagonist. And once you reach about the halfway point, instead of the characters following an intriguing path of clues, you just get them sitting around trying to figure out the Cryptex codes, interrupted with the requisite police chases. That's not to say there are no positive things about the novel. Far from it. The hook the book sets is very intriguing(which may add to the dissapointment of the rest of the book), Dan Brown has a great writing style, and the finale contains some great revelations, however it is dissapointing that Langdon never really does reach the ultimate prize. Overall, you could do alot worse than the Da Vinci Code, but you could do alot better too, i.e Dan Brown's three other novels.
Rating: 
Summary: DON'T BUY THIS BOOK
Review: If you must read this book because it is a best-seller, borrow a copy or get it from the library. The Da Vince Code is actually a screen play in disguise and can only be palatable as a visual romp through France and England in pursuit of The Holy Grail. The premise is unbelievable, the plot adolescent, and the conclusion ridiculous. Religious scholars and thoughtful readers alike will find this book contrived and preachy. I found it ludicrous that a publisher would publish anything so silly or that readers would pay to read it. I only gave it one star because that was as low as the ratings go.
Rating: 
Summary: Fiction is stranger than Belief
Review: If you never read the 1982 book HOLY BLOOD HOLY GRAIL (Baigent,Leigh,& Lincoln, New York:Delacorte Press), you might think that Dan Brown came up with some interesting 'facts' from the historical record. However if you do two things, read the 1982 book and do an internet search for "Priory of Sion" (use Google), you will come up with the material from which to craft the story of the DaVinci Code. And it's crafted from some very clever flights of fancy. But the reader should be prepared to face the question: which is closer to fiction -- Dan Brown's THE DA VINCI CODE or the claim that Jesus Christ rose from the dead?
Rating:
Summary: MUST read
Review: If you read only one book this year, it should be The Da Vinci Code. In fact, if you only read one book this decade, it should be this one. I could not put it down. Dan Brown pulls you in on so many levels. This book redefines the phrase, "page-turner." I was blown away. I have recommended this book to everyone I know.
Rating:
Summary: For the ignorant...
Review: If you study any religious history or art history you would know
this book is aimed at convincing only the ignorant they are reading great religious insights. If you want to read a critisism on Christianity then read Neitzsche, so even if you beleive in Christianity you
have read an inteligent critisism not a totally rediculous
account of Christianity and art.
Rating:
Summary: Full of.....
Review: If you take pleasure in exploring excellent characterizations, creative plot and sub-plots, examining some religious history, scanning human reasoning, analyzing anagrams, speculating outcomes and embracing mystery, then Brown's theory on a grand scale search for the Holy Grail is your foundation of excellent fiction...or is it fiction? You decide. It could be full of....
Rating:
Summary: Take this book for what it is FICTION and you will enjoy it
Review: If you take this book as a work of fiction, then you are in for a fast paced rollercoaster ride. I can see why this might offend some hardcore religious people. As a Roman Catholic who happens to be half Italian, I would urge you to read this book. When my grandmother died she left me a copy of the painting of DaVinci's "Last Supper". After I read the book I studied the painting. Remember this is entertainment and it does get you to think outside the box. I don't agree with all of the theories put forth in this book, but I do find them very intersting. It really makes you ponder how you learned about religion.
Rating: 
Summary: Foucault's Pendulum for Dummies
Review: If you think you've read this book before, you have. Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" covers much the same ground, is better written, and more sound in its research. The author can't even take the step of having his Parisian characters create puzzles in French (and his own French seems at times in need of assistance). Worst is his annoying habit of ending chapters as the characters view some shocking item - not to be revealed for pages to come. By mid book, you are juggling so many of these, it's not surprising if you forget a few by the time they are in fact revealed! It is amusing that he takes a legitimate religious organization, Opus Dei, and turns into a cartoon of a James Bond evil spy ring. One only hopes that too many don't look in this pious group for shadowy albino assassins. I dare say they won't find any. And by the way, cell phones don't work in airplanes. You are thousands of feet from the nearest antenna which is pointed down (you know, towards where the cell phones are for the most part!)
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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