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Dec 16, 2009

Mer rated it:

PLEASE do NOT recommend The Da Vinci Code to me because you think it's brilliant. Please do not try to explain to me that it is a "really interesting and eye-opening book." Just don't. Please.

I've read Iain Pear, I heart Foucault's Pendulum, Dashiell Hammett is my hero, Alan Moore is My Absolute Favorite, I listen to Coil on a fairly regular basis, and cloak n' dagger secret society/Priory of Sion/Knights of Templar-tinged num nums make me a very happy girl... but if you t More...

304 comments like (539 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jim rated it:

This is a pretty formulaic page turner, a fun quick read. Written at about the level of the average Nancy Drew mystery, it is best appreciated at that level. As far as the content, there are howlers on virtually every page (starting with the hero who looks like "Harrison Ford in Harris tweed" and is a "Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard" -- good work if you can find it). You have to ignore very pulpy, cheesy writing to enjoy this romantic thriller.

Intende More...

11 comments like (102 people liked it)

Aug 25, 2011

Keely rated it:

A thriller devoid of pacing or exciting language. A mystery devoid of clues, foreshadowing, or facts. A tell-all of half-truths based upon a forged document written by a schizophrenic conman. A character-driven modern novel devoid of character. The second draft of Angels and Demons. Page-turning action thanks to the literary equivalent of pulling out at the moment of orgasm. A spiritual awakening built on new-age conspiracy theory. This book is many things, and none of them good, new, or interes More...

5 comments like (40 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Maura rated it:

I've finally started reading that ever so controversial best-seller by Dan Brown. Actually, not reading it, listening to it while driving around Lansing, MI. This book seems to have changed the minds of many Catholics (my grandfather included) and Protestants alike. Granted, there have long been rumors of secret societies and organizations within the Roman Catholic Church, and historical cover-ups are rampant throughout civilization.

HOWEVER,

The book is crap. It's no More...

14 comments like (60 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

ryan rated it:

most of us have heard of this controverisal book. it takes an open minded person to read this and to remember it is just fiction. but it brings up a lot of important questions about the Christian church, and the loss of paganism and the respect of the Goddess or the Woman.

I don't care if I am the only one who likes this book. it is my own truth, and i will think what i want to think. Dan Brown didn't LEAD me or anyone else. he OPENED our minds. simply and importantly...he was just a More...

21 comments like (88 people liked it)

Aug 22, 2011

Stephen rated it:

OKAY PEOPLE…someone let me in on the gag because between the cries of "Greatest Book of Greaty Greatness EVER" and the screams of "Lamest Load of Lamey Lameness EVER", my itty bitty brain is left very…

So post Hype-a-ganza, I finally got around to reading this popular, polarizing, pop culture icon and thought it was….drum roll……………………FINE(sigh). It was a solid read with a slight lean towards the “eh” side of MEH and few moments of genuine “that’s neat.” I don’t see all More...

45 comments like (73 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Ruth rated it:

Impossibly complicated plot. Really, really, really bad writing. This book was forced upon me. I should have known better.

65 comments like (47 people liked it)

Nov 17, 2007

Jeremy rated it:

This book, and everything written by Dan Brown (to varying degrees), represent much of what I most dislike about pop literature. First of all, Mr. Brown, despite teaching English at Amherst College, is a bad writer. This is not to say that I am a good writer. But I recognize a person who can't "show" you vivid scenes, he has to "tell you". Various characters wear expensive clothes. How do we know? The text says they're expensive. How do we know Mr. Langdon is brilliant? The t More...

1 comment like (48 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Joey rated it:

This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This book is non-stop action.This bo More...

11 comments like (36 people liked it)

Jul 15, 2008

Ethan rated it:

Four stars for pure entertainment value.

However, Dave Barry's review gets five stars:

`The Da Vinci Code,' cracked
by Dave Barry

I have written a blockbuster novel. My inspiration was The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown, which has sold 253 trillion copies in hardcover because it's such a compelling page-turner. NOBODY can put this book down:

MOTHER ON BEACH: Help! My child is being attacked by a shark!

LIFEGUARD (looking up from The Da More...

6 comments like (105 people liked it)

Oct 19, 2007

Lauren rated it:

This book, this book, this hopelessly stupid book. It's okay. It's something to read. It's not the worst book I've ever read. I did get through the whole thing. But, simply, it is not THAT good.
I will now proceed to quote from another reviewer, Mer, who has said exactly what I have been saying for years -albeit she does it far more eloquently than I:

"The characters are weakly drawn. The dialog is excruciating. The research is shoddy and self-serving at best. The plot, no m More...

0 comments like (21 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2007

Tortla rated it:

I accidentally deleted this from my books. So that sucks. I don't remember when I read it anymore. It was horrible.

EDIT:
...But not quite as horrible as the idiotic discussion which this review spawned. I hate this book. That is my opinion. Many people share that opinion. I do not claim to be capable of writing a better book (although I suspect I already have written better pieces of literature, for some school assignment or something). You can like this book if you want. But if More...

0 comments like (21 people liked it)

Jun 01, 2009

CJ rated it:

Caveat Academics!!!
I won't belabor the obvious, as it's been done quite well by other reviewers, but I just couldn't stand not to add my own "hear hear!" to the fray. If you're going to create a character who is an expert, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure you check your facts! Whoever edited this drivel ought to be sewn in a sack with a rabid raccoon and flung into Lake Michigan.

And just as a matter of good taste - your expert should not be an expert in everything under More...

5 comments like (27 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Michael rated it:

I read the Baigent book a decade before I read this novel.

Somehow, Brown managed to "dumbify" everything.

Afterwards I read Eco to wash the taste out of my brain.

0 comments like (17 people liked it)

Jul 03, 2007

AJ rated it:

First of all, let's try to rid our mind of all the hype and hoopla surrounding the whole thing. Let's pretend the whole thing is just some spiral bound notebook that you found on the train and read because you were lonely.

Ok, having accomplished that, let's dole out some compliments. Good plot, Danny boy! You managed to write an interesting crime/mystery/whatever thing WHILE managing to blaspheme one of the most worshiped dudes of all time. That takes some creativity, and some More...

1 comment like (16 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

mary rated it:

it's an action movie! it's a book! it's an action movie!

it surprises me that the movie version was so dull, having such a simple adapted screenplay to write. this book reads like a blockbuster looks. and i will admit that i totally loved it while i was reading and forgot it promptly after, but i did the same when i watched vin diesel in XXX.

it's a very fun read. it's horrendously written, the characters are rather shallow, there are enough chase scenes and things popping More...

2 comments like (12 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Brian rated it:

I read this because someone recommended to me. To this day I would like tell them off. This book is complete crap. Stereotypical one-dimensional characters (c'mon! an albino monk assassin?? Gimme a break people!). There are really only 4-5 actual characters so it is no mystery of "whodunnit?"

Yeah it's a page-turner. So what? So is any Dr. Seuss book. But at least Dr. Seuss was a genius. Dan Brown is a hack. A rich hack, now. But totally talentless. He is the Brittney Spea More...

2 comments like (14 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Crystal rated it:

Believe it or not, my BOSS lent me this book. He said it was so great that I HAD to read it, and he pressed it into my hands. I said thanks in surprise, because that was about as personal as my boss ever got. well, imagine the awkwardness when I didn't really like the book. what do you say to the man who signs your paychecks when you think his book is nothing more than a creative version of what I call the man's romance novel--boring, average man (okay, in this book very smart--but not special More...

0 comments like (15 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

rachel rated it:

I was genuinely confused by the stupidity of the DaVinci code. The two protagonists were touted as supergeniuses, yet kept making the most amazing dumbfuck moves. Sometimes this could be written off as making the book accessible to its intended public (e.g., to insure that his readers understand the concept of a keystone, Brown has one of his supergenius characters exclaim, "but wait, vaulted ceilings don't *have* keys!" as an intro to a suitable-for-third-graders explanation). Othe More...

1 comment like (11 people liked it)

Jun 10, 2008

Jen3n rated it:

I found this book condescending, unexciting, and ill thought-out. I wanted it to be better. I had been TOLD it was fun. I was lied to. This is an awful book.

0 comments like (15 people liked it)

Aug 08, 2008

Robert rated it:

For the most part, it seems that people either passionately love this book or they passionately hate it. I happen to be one of the former. For my part, I don't see the book so much as an indictment of the Catholic Church in particular but of religious extremism and religion interfering in political process in general. The unwarranted political control granted to extreme religious organizations like the CBN is an issue that we will be forced to address one way or the other. To my eye, our politic More...

19 comments like (28 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Codereloadpulsa marked it as to-read

Berita SPEKTAKULER...!!!!!!!

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Jika kita berfikir logis...tentunya CODE ini pasti sangat merugikan para operator2 sellular di Indonesia.....Bener ngga..??? Tapi syukurlah bahwa kenyataannya mereka tidak merasa ada kelainan di data mereka bahwa kita yg memakai CODE ini bisa mendoublekan pulsa kita..... ini sangat menolong kita2 pemakai pulsa....dan oto More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Seth rated it:

For cheap supermarket fiction, this sure was cheap supermarket fiction. It would have helped if this was the first book I had ever read. Unfortunately, having read Curious George as a child (a towering work of literary genius by comparison), The DaVinci Code suffered perhaps unjustly.

0 comments like (25 people liked it)

Nov 08, 2007

Purple rated it:

Like the bible itself, it's a great story ruined by horrific storytelling.

Apt, I suppose.

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Sep 14, 2007

Irene rated it:

Worst. Book. Ever.

1 comment like (16 people liked it)

Jul 09, 2008

Jake rated it:

If for some reason you haven’t heard of the Da Vinci Code before now, I have no help for you. I live under a fairly substantive rock, and even I had heard of this book to death. I had even attempted to read it once or twice, during my stint at Waldenbooks, but couldn’t really get into it. So I gave up, and decided to relegate it to the same place as Titanic and Forrest Gump—works of popular culture that I have no interest in, and therefore, will not partake of. But in a testament to the power of More...

8 comments like (14 people liked it)

Dec 11, 2007

Shannon rated it:

First, I'd like to say that I'm only giving this one star because I don't think it's possible to give something zero stars and still rate it.

Second of all, I haven't actually read this book. So it seems unfair for me to rate it, I'm sure. I have, however, read the first... 20 pages. And those first 20 pages contained some of the worst writing I have ever read. Everything about it was painful.

I don't think I can ever bring myself to actually read this book entirely. The t More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Nov 05, 2008

Ibrahim added it

It is no secret that I am deeply charmed and swept off my feet by atheist who make the engine of my mind work and work; they make me feel alive. What Dan Brown does on the other hand is spreading around historical fallacies and lies. Even as fiction, his work at best is nothing but literary parasitism. It is now a fashionable trend in the world of literary market to see actual parasites who can't stand on their own intellectual merit but take advantage of the vast resonance associated with the n More...

4 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 15, 2007

Espen rated it:

The book is a clunker, and once you start noticing it there is no way back.

The premise is great and the plot at least starts out promising, but the writing, particularly the exposition, is breathless and shallow - Paris is described barely better than Marlo Morgan describes Australia. The book features a Harvard professor of "Religious Symbology" trying to make sense of the death of a Louvre curator - who turns out to be the grandmaster of a secret society guarding the 2000 More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 19, 2009

Hannah rated it:

Dan Brown Used to Teach Creative Writing? Pity the Students

I got to page 17 before I was pissed off enough to stop reading. The little author biog states that Dan Brown used to teach creative writing at a US university. How?!

The old adage of "show, don't tell" has perhaps been over-used, but Dan Brown's text is like a masterclass in what not to do. Facts are clumsily shoe-horned in or splattered about the page like pigeon-poop:
"So-and-So - the ruggedl More...

12 comments like (10 people liked it)

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