Beth read and liked Erin's review of The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, #3):

"We all know that Dan Brown isn't a very good writer. The Da Vinci Code was good, guilty fun, but it isn't great literature. Angels and Demons belongs on the trash heap, as far as I'm concerned. So why read The Lost Symbol? I guess it was one of t...more We all know that Dan Brown isn't a very good writer. The Da Vinci Code was good, guilty fun, but it isn't great literature. Angels and Demons belongs on the trash heap, as far as I'm concerned. So why read The Lost Symbol? I guess it was one of those "everyone else is doing it" things. Just call me a lemming.

The first half of this book was SLOW. So slow I nearly gave up on it several times. It was an absolute chore to read. Finally, it picked up and I was able to finish the final chapters quickly. Implausible and ridiculous are the words I'd select to describe this book, without the guilty pleasure factor of Da Vinci Code. I wasn't interested in any of the characters or the mystery at hand. Can someone please tell Dan Brown to stop using italics in every single paragraph? It is so annoying. Also, why must the bad guy always be some crazy, deformed freak of nature? It just makes everything too obvious. This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as criticism goes, but two of the more irritating points for me.

Anyway, I thought this book sucked. I wish I hadn't bothered. But at least I got this book from the library and didn't contribute to the piles of money Dan Brown must roll around in all day. (less) "