Rating: 
Summary: Mystical lite -- and that's all right
Review: Read it one riveted session -- with a bucket of beer and chicken and snow on the ground outside. Many readers have found Brown's metaphysical thriller an over-cooked and contrived tale, with much promised and little delivered -- but I say he's a very clever story-teller, with a canny knack for strange detail. For the sake of all those disappointed souls, may I suggest a book that far exceeds expectations. It's called IN THE GHOST COUNTRY by Peter Hillary -- it's an adventure story, a ghost story, a psychological thriller and a shock-filled memoir by a famous person, all in one. It absolutely knocked my socks off.
Rating:
Summary: AWESOME!
Review: Read the Amazon reviews for this book and took a chance. WOW, what a great read. Haven't read a book this good in quite some time. Took it to the beach for vacation and finished it in two days. Could not put it down. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: ONE WORD CAN'T EVEN EXPRESS IT BUT HERE GOES W-O-W.
Review: READ THIS BOOK! MY COPY IS NOT LEAVING MY SIDE! THE BEST BOOK I'VE EVER READ AND I'VE READ SOME FASTASTIC BOOKS! EAT YOUR HEART OUT HARRY POTTER! THIS IS HARRY FOR ADULTS ONLY 10 TIMES A GOOD! SUSPENSE, INTRIGUE, MYSTERY, POSSIBLE TRUTH. ANCENT QUEST REVEALED. A MUST READ! BUY IT TODAY. If your waiting for your spouse, child, parent or someone to finish it don't wait get your own copy you'll want to keep it and read with a pen, trust me you'll use it. Wow doesn't even begin to express how great this book is. It keeps you surprised until the very end.
Rating: 
Summary: Totally overrated.
Review: Reading Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code" brought me instantly back to the way I felt when I first tried John Grisham: this is the perfect author for someone who either has difficulty reading or doesn't really enjoy it. Strictly eighth grade level, at the most. No one you will ever meet in real life talks or acts remotely like Brown's banal characters in their contrived predicaments. The "DaVinci" plot could have been actually fascinating, but Brown's shallow, cliche characterizations and simplistic writing style are insulting. Any "Harry Potter" book is more intelligent and engrossing, not in any way meant as disrespect for J.K. Rowling by lumping her fine work in with this clap-trap.
Rating:
Summary: Suspend belief, people! It's a fun book!
Review: Reading some of the reviews, I am taken aback at how seriously some people are taking this book. Dan Brown says he poured a ton of research in the book. Critics say the book is a bunch of malarkey. Personally, what matters to me is that I finished the whole thing in less than a day. I can't think of another book that I've read recently that really captured my interest more than this one. The chapters are short and always end in cliffhangers. The story is filled with, if not truth, at least INTRIGUE. The mere fact that this book has been so controversial makes you want to get into it even more. In short, this book is just FUN to read! Even if it is a BIT of a stretch and the characters seem to be grasping for anything that even remotely ties into their theories (anagrams and all), it makes the story interesting. For a work of FICTION, people, THAT is what I think matters in the end.
Rating: 
Summary: A non-fiction disguised as a fast-paced novel?
Review: Reading the book I get the impression that Dan Brown spent many hours researching the Grail legends and its connection to the Priory, and, the Catholic Church. Much of this we can find in books such as Holy Blood; Holy Grail, etc. But - at least in my opinion - Brown does inject some less bandied elements into the subject in general: worship of the feminine principle, the concept the Sekinah, as the yang to YHWH's yin, and such. Brown then pours all these elements into a pretty good action-packed yarn about an American professor specialising in the Grail legends (Brown?) on the run from the French police and albino assassins for a murder of a museum curator. Interestingly the person he's on the run with is none other than the victim's grand-daughter. If you don't like the drama here then at least you might find the non-fiction elements refreshing. Brown's writing style is pretty good too: very short chapters with punchy scenes.
Rating:
Summary: Well, I loved it, give it a chance
Review: Reading the other reviews are quite shocking to say the least. My goodness, you'd think this was the worst book ever. Well, it really isn't. I loved it; I loved the alternative interpretations and reading about the multi-layers of the Religion and symbology. I'm not a heavy reader in fiction stories dealing with religion, etc., but I couldn't put it down. He did fairly well with keeping up the suspense and he writes very well and easily. Granted, the characters are somewhat flat and certain things a little iffy, and the plot needs some work. I'm fairly anal when it comes to the books I read and very critcal about plot and character development. I guess I just found the style and the way he wrote about Religon, symbology, DaVinci, etc, that really captivated my attention. Eh, at least he got one part right on! jAlso, if you want real hardcore facts, you need to read something else, such as non-ficiton book about the topics in the book. Ultimately, keep an open mind and wait until you've read the whole thing. I wouldn't base the information in this book as your only source of reference, but here's a reality, what is discussed in the book are real discussions that are taking place, so it's not this bogus ambiguous 'thing.' Anyting dealing w/ relgion will be speculative. Besides, he's not telling you what to believe, only presenting them in a different format.
Rating: 
Summary: good reads come in all shapes and sizes
Review: Reading the reviews of The Da Vinci Code has been almost entertaining as reading the book. However, it's troubling to read the comments from reviewers insulting those who enjoyed the book. As we all have something in common (we actually read books), can't we agree to disagree? Much of the vitriol directed at the book can be divided into two camps: 1) those who think Brown's research is either suspect or based on a heretic viewpoint, and 2) those who think Brown is a terrible writer. As a reviewer pointed out, if a book makes a person think and want to research its ideas further, then that piece of literature has merit. As E.L. Doctorow wrote in his essay The Importance of Fiction, "Fiction is democratic; it reasserts the authority of the single mind to make and remake the world" (1986). To be sure, Brown is no Hemingway, Faulkner or even Stephen King. He is a creative writer who has created a thought-proking thriller. The best advice/recommendation is to read the book and form your own opinion.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't believe the hype
Review: Reading this book was an utter waste of a few hours. It pretends to be have some historical and scholarly significant in the tradition of "The Name of the Rose" but it doesn't even rate to be mentioned in the same breath. I guess one was supposed to absorb Dan Brown's version of history with the same naivete that his main female character seems to display at every new revelation. Didn't she grow up with a noted art scholar? I will only state one example among many in the book which I found preposterous: the suggestion that Da Vinci painted the image of Mary Magdalene (known as the image of John to the rest of us) next to Jesus in his famous last supper! Also, having recently seen the newly restored fresco in Milan, the vibrant reds of "Mary's" clothing but which in reality is the depiction of John the disciple could hardly be called a vibrant red. I found this reference particularly irksome because of the use of Da Vinci's name in the title. I gave this two stars for the storytelling value but I would rate it 0 on scholarship.
Rating:
Summary: Its success is more terrifying than the story
Review: Reading this wasn't like getting root canal; it wasn't that painful, Instead, reading it was like experiencing those moments in a dentist's chair with nothing to do except wait for the anaesthetic to seize hold, wait for the dentist to come in, wait with a cotton clump immobilizing your upper lip while a rubber device pries your jaw in place. Your feeling is one of discomfort and boredom, and your dominant wish is simple: "I hope this ends soon." As banal as some "page-turners" may be, this book seems uniquely joyless, without any of the elements that make books special, if not magical: insight, words that act like lyrics, passages that read almost musically. Instead, this book seems frighteningly like the Dick and Jane books:it's not just storytelling, it's only storytelling. Pure plot and nothing more. Is that what fiction has come to? Heaven help us! And who has ten hours to waste on something like this, something that suggests what one reviewer said of the movie The Passenger: If sheer vacuity had weight, one could crush an ox by dropping on him this book. Of course, this screed seems to assume this is a book. In all likelihood, it isn't; it's the outline for a screen play from which Mr. Brown hoped and prayed he reap at least $3 million so he could avoid the one task he dislikes: writing.
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