Rating: 
Summary: Comic Book for Adults
Review: This author loves number riddles and in this book he adroitly discovers the lowest common denominator. But what's more important, how many books Dan Brown sells or the legacy of great individuals? (He should be imprisoned for what he did to Bernini in Angels and Demons - but, heh, heh, not too many lawyers around representing 17th century sculptors) This is Spiderman in the Louvre, Batman gallavanting around Europe. The plot is intricate and the background semi-interesting, but the characters are flat and the dialogue laughable. And the author REALLY needs to fess up in his little "Fact" sections as to what's not real regarding important historical figures. Can anyone name an Oliver Stone movie since JFK? Coming soon to a theater near you, America!
Rating:
Summary: Lousy history, dangerous conspiracy-theory storyline
Review: This badly informed book would have been less annoying if the author had avoided such outdated stereotypes as the supposed role of 'the Inquisition' in persecuting witches, or conspiracy-theory-type accounts of imaginary secret Christian societies and mysteries. This is all so derivative, and so wrong, and so boring.I don't care if historical novels are inaccurate--after all, they are not MEANT to be accurate, they are meant to be entertaining, and this book succeeds on that score. But I do care when heavily biased and badly outdated scholarship informs a novelist's view of the past--such as the nonsense about 'the Inquisition' persecuting witches. Dozens of good books on the history of witch-hunting have been published over the last three decades, and looking at one or two, instead of an older encyclopedia or Western Civ. textbook, might have pushed the author to avoid this old (Protestant) slur. The Catholic Church per se had little to do with witch-hunting, though many individual churchmen (and Protestants too, BTW) were guilty of all kinds of nasty things. I should also mention that a substantial portion of those persecuted as witches were men--in some parts of Europe, they were the majority of 'witches'! Anyone interested in this can read more in Andrew Gow and Lara Apps, Male Witches in Early Modern Europe (Manchester University Press, 2003). It'll be clear enough by now that I am a professor of history. However, I am not a Christian of any kind, so I don't have a particular warm spot for Rome--I'd just like to see less in the way of outdated views and vicious bias in books like this.
Rating: 
Summary: Like Cheetos--Cheesy, but Irresistible
Review: This barnburner of a page-turner is irresistible and fun if you remember that it is fiction, spiced with a few grains of truth and conjecture. I also suspect that Brown wrote it with tongue firmly in cheek. The protagonist Professor of Symbology (what the heck is that?) lectures to his students in a classroom situation that will have religion and art history students rolling in the aisles. He refers to Leonardo as "Da Vinci"--something no art professor ever does, and Brown undoubtedly knows it because his wife is an art historian. On the serious side, Brown effectively uses his storytelling talents to expose readers to ambiguities in "truths" that many Christians take for granted--any why not? It's good to make people think. If you don't think it will spoil your enjoyment of the book, read Chicago Art Institue curator Bruce Boucher's article about the Da Vinci Code in the New York Times ("Does the Da Vinci Code Crack Leonardo?", 8/3/2003) or the review in the National Catholic Reporter (10/3/2003) written by Father Andrew Greeley a not-too-shabby writer of page-turners himself, who states that the bizarre and powerful secret society Opus Dei "would have a hard time conspiring themselves out of a wet paper bag." A cheesy, fun book that will make a long airplane flight go down like a plate of French brie, crackers, and fresh figs.
Rating:
Summary: Sacreligions, Maybe? Overrated, Yes!
Review: This bestseller by Dan Brown has Professor Robert Langdon and policewoman Sophie Noveau solving one puzzle after another in search of the answer to a great mystery that has been kept through the ages by people like leonardo Da Vinci and Victor Hugo. This novel reads like a text book, with poor characterization and tons of encyclopedia-like explanations of art and symbols. Brown blurs fact and fiction into a jumbled mess that ultimately strikes at the heart of the Catholic and Christian church. I don't know if its sacreligious because it is a novel and it does pay token acknowledgement to traditional Christian beliefs. The book's is its easy acceptance of the dark secret that the Da Vinci code supposedly hides. If that secret were so obviously true, it would be known by now. With just a few minutes of research on the internet, you can discover that most of Brown's premises are faulty. This would normally be okay in a fiction novel, but Brown does little to distinguish this book from a long narration on the history of art and symbols.
Rating:
Summary: Overall a pretty good read
Review: This book actually reminds me of Jurassic Park, and other books by Michael Crichton. The author really knows his subject (or can fake it well enough to get past a non-expert), and includes enough details to disguise the fact that the entire premise is pretty preposterous. You can't take away from Brown that he wrote a real page-turner...it was suspenseful and the puzzles were fun to try to figure out. Anyone who is interested in art, history, religion, and especially the combination of the three will enjoy it.
Rating: 
Summary: dfraz
Review: This book begins in an exciting, suspenseful and thrilling manner, but it soon loses the reader's interest with its unbelievable, historically inaccurate plot. Many people will read this and think it is historical fact or truth. It is not. It is a NOVEL based on the most outrageous, revisionist history. The book would have had more credibility if it was based in something that was historically plausible. Readers who are analytical will immediately lose interest as the plot and story line are revealed in their fullness. It's just not believable, even as a novel. It's not worth your time or your money.
Rating: 
Summary: If you only read one book this year, read this one
Review: This book blew me away! Once I got past the first couple chapters I could not put it down. It reads very much like a movie... Dan Brown's writing style makes it easy to picture the characters and their actions on your mind's "theater screen." I highly recommend having a pen and paper handy while you read because you will have a hard time deciding whether to jump on the Net and research the historical facts Mr. Brown has woven into his story, or continue with the book and let the answer unfold through the characters. The facts are amazing and interesting all by themselves and bear further research either way. There are very few "good stopping places," so make sure you have plenty of time to read once you start. It's one of those books where you get to the end of a chapter and say "I'll just read one more chapter" and suddenly it's 4am. If you like solving puzzles, secret societies, adventure and/or religious history this book is for you. It's easy to picture yourself as either of the lead characters because they're just regular people doing their jobs until one day a murder throws them together to uncover one of the greatest mysteries of all time - the Holy Grail. In the book they say the Grail finds you... if this book has found you, honor the call. Even though this is a fiction novel, I hope it opens many eyes and sets many people on their own quest for the truth.
Rating:
Summary: Worst piece of fabrication
Review: This book by Dan Brown has clearly got to be the most atrocious jumble of fabrications and bias against Christianity I've ever read. I despised having to give it a quality rating (for its worth) of even 1, seeing as there no rating for 0. First of all, Dan Brown claims that there is a secret society, named the Priory of Sion, which he also claims was led by well-known people like Da Vinci, Newton, and Victor Hugo. Except that what Dan Brown really did was mix a bunch of famous names together into a secret society that they were not a part of. The horrible fabrications of fact made me lose my respect for it and more than once I was fuming with with the blatantly twistedness of the information.
Rating:
Summary: The Da Vinci Code--what a disappointment
Review: This book came HIGHLY recommended and that's the only reason I read it all the way through. Otherwise I would've stopped at least half way. To each their own, but I personally found it a waste of time.
Rating: 
Summary: Overrated
Review: This book came highly recommended to me by many friends whose literary tastes I really respect. It is a good read for a beach day and it is mostly enjoyable with that perspective. However, there are many serious flaws in the book that worry me. First, it is very hard to distinguish fact from fiction for the un-initiated in Da Vinci's work, religious sects, etc. It can lead to dangerous conclusions in people that "read but don't question" modern fiction. Second, I found the book annoying at times in its use of simplistic language. Its' stupid comnments (mostly Langdon's thoughts) insult the average intellect and cheapen the book. Who cannot read the part about Langdon wondering if the inside of the Zurich Depository was "decorated by Allied Steel" and feel how senseless and idiotic that thought is? The story line is entertaining and thought-provoking but no more than the average thriller out there. One good outcome, at least for me, is the desire to search for the historical truth regarding all the controversial subjects presented and come to my own informed conclusions.
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