Reviews

"...if I agree to publish an idea like this...it'll kill your reputation. You're a Harvard historian, for God's sake, not a popshlockmiester looking for a quick buck."

"Renowned Symbologist" Robert Langdon was supposed to meet Jacques Sonier one night; instead, he gets called to the Louvre, the scene of Sonier's horrific death. Langdon spots clues to Sonier's murderer everywhere, which makes the French police officer, Fache, immediately think that Langdon is the murderer. Fortunately, sexy Sophie intervenes to shunt Langdon away. And then they are off, trying to avoid being arrested, trying to find the "Grail", and trying to discover who killed Sonier.

NOTE 1: My French is atrocious; expect misspellings everywhere.

NOTE 2: Light spoilers to follow.

This book has been quite controversial. A lot of Christian and Catholic churches have been up in arms about the claims Dan Brown makes in this book--namely how Jesus married Mary Magdalene and how the Church will stop at nothing to try to conceal this "horrific and world-altering" religious conspiracy.

Let's get this out right off the bat: I don't know if Jesus was married. Tradition has it that he was not, but since I wasn't there, I can't say for certain. All I know is that, if I learned Jesus was in fact married, I would probably be surprised, but I'm not going to suddenly abandon my faith just because of Jesus' relationship status. And while this may create a bit of controversy if it ever does appear to be true (I think there was a recent article that gave more evidence to this), I think a lot of people are just going to believe that it's all a bunch of lies. Good grief, stop making mountains out of molehills.

"Controversial" non-controversy aside, this was an absolutely unintentionally hilarious book. Characterization is astonishingly bad, the pacing is dull, the clues somehow end up between too easy and too difficult, the mystery is snooze-worthy, and the narrator's over-the-top French accent sent me into gales of laughter.

Our main characters are Gary Stu and Mary Sue--I mean, Robert Langdon and Sophie Noveau. Langdon is one of the most boring male protagonists I've had to read in recent history. I love how he supposedly looks so "bookish", with descriptions like this:

"His usually sharp blue eyes looked hazy and drawn tonight. A dark stubble was shrouding his strong jaw and dimpled chin. Around his temples, the grey highlights were advancing, making their way deeper into his thicket of coarse black hair. Although his female colleagues insisted the grey only accentuated his bookish appeal, Langdon knew better."
George Clooney anyone?

It was painful how every character had to clamor on and on about his "accomplishments" and how "intriguing" he is, or how the ladies' panties get all wet when he enters a room. If this is not male fantasy, I don't know what is.

The weird thing is, when it comes to actually solving the clues/mystery, Langdon is a moron. He spends so long talking about history, symbols, sacred feminine (I got a load on this one...), but he seems severely stumped when trying to solve a few clues. The worst was the mirror-image English. Do you seriously mean to tell me an American can't recognize mirror-image English? I, a measly engineer, experimented with reading mirror-image English and had no problems.

Meanwhile we have the set of boobs, Sophie. Don't expect her to have a personality or purpose besides being a set of boobs to get captured. I think Sophie is held at gunpoint 800 times in this book. She is even dumber than Langdon, despite being a talented cryptographer. She cannot solve any of the puzzles on her own, even though her OWN GRANDFATHER WROTE THEM.

The rest of the cast was goofy and 1-dimensional. Fache might as well twirl a mustache for all the good he does. I had no clue what Arringarosa's purpose in the story was. Silas' Sally Sob Story was so overwrought and cliche, I was laughing at his self-flagellation. And Teabing...good God, Teabing. I have no idea how to classify Teabing. Other than I kept imagining Sir Elton John, and I'm not sure that was the "characterization" Brown was going for.

But you know, a lot of thrillers are more about the puzzles and mystery and action than the characters. I can buy that. But you also know what? The puzzles, mystery, and action are horrible. The puzzles tend to be the same type over and over and over again. They also seem to somehow be way too complicated (such as translating one word into Greek, doing an anagram, then translating to English???) and way too easy at the same time. There really is no mystery; there are so few characters, that it's pretty obvious who the Teacher is about halfway through the book. And the action? PAH! None, or very, very sparse. Most of the book is long, boring talking scenes where Teabing and Langdon try to out-Wikipedia each other. I'd rather go to Wikipedia and read THAT then read the mangled facts here.

The other thing that drove me bonkers was how EVERYTHING, from Walt Disney to Sir Isaac Newton, from playing cards to the Mona Lisa, was about the Sacred Feminism. I don't doubt that the Sacred Feminism had its influence, but come on! It's like Brown randomly threw in artwork or famous people to be a part of his stupid conspiracy theory. It was so bad, I started throwing this guy around my status updates:

And the narrator! Good grief! A Geoffrey Harding narrated my copy, and he had the worst accents I've heard in a long time. Sophie sounded like a moron; the French sounded so ridiculous, I had to stop the iPod to laugh. And Harding reads everything in this movie trailer voice that makes the book seem so much more important than it is.

The best thing about this book was reading it along with my Goodreads friend. I loved how she would bring up stuff I totally missed or how we would virtual laugh over Dan Brown's ridiculous scenarios.

If you want a smart, intelligent read, don't go here. If you are expecting Indiana Jones style adventure, I think this is just too slow-paced for you. If you are looking for a Buddy Read to snark over, you've come to the right place!!

thebookpookie's review against another edition

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adventurous informative tense fast-paced

5.0

This book started my obsession with Dan Brown and Robert Langdon. Such an interesting read, kept me turning the pages. Hands down a complete 6 star read 🌟