So I finally got around to reading the thing to see what all the fuss was about. Overall I found it to be somewhat interesting and packed full of detail.

BUT

Dan Brown's style of writing is so basic it could have been written by a 16 year old. I found it to be boring and overly simplistic.

Maybe it was a matter of poor writing, or maybe because I've seen the idea in other places (including Kevin Smith's Dogma) but as soon as it was mentioned that Sauniere needed to tell Sophie Neveu "the truth about her family" I immediately knew she was going to be revealed as a descendent of Jesus. Takes a bit of the suspense away when the reader can guess the "surprise" 1/4 of the way through the book.

Also, Sophie mentions seeing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre behind the protective casing when she was 6 years old. Assuming the story is set in the present day and Sophie is in her 30's, this is impossible. 30 years ago, the Mona Lisa was not in a seperate viewing room covered with plexiglass, but in the hall, behind a rope. The description given by Dan Brown of the room the Mona Lisa is in is also innacurate. Even not having been there for 2 years, I knew that the memory of the room in my head and the description I read didn't match. If Dan Brown didn't bother to get something as basic as the location of the Mona Lisa right-something that at least a few of the book's readers would have known was wrong -what else did he just make up as he went?

I realize it is just a piece of fiction, but considering how people raved about it, I expected better.

Sorry, but that's how I saw it.

meow85 said:

what a shame.
What is a book you DID enjoy?

first mistake
u read the second book first
like almost anyone else.

read angels and demons
don't expect books like these to be so complex and packed with big words
im sure he wrote these books in a way that everyone can enjoy the book and not feel like a total retard cuz they didn't understand something.

charlottegelin said:

I actually haven't read much fiction lately. No real reason why, I guess.

Right now I'm working my way through 2 books:

Rockin' in Time: A Social History of Rock-And-Roll by David P. Szatmary

and

Mein Kampf by Hitler

RIT is a bit dry, but packed full of info on the history of rock music and how it affects Western culture in terms of civil rights, women's lib, gay lib, etc. and vice versa.

and Mein Kampf? What can I say, Hitler was psychotic. A fascinating, if convoluted, look into his mind.

SammiJ said:

It's not the story that I felt was his problem, but the style. The story I actually quite liked, but the way it was told was too simple, I felt. Should things really be dumbed down that much for people to understand them? I don't think so.

You can at least agree with me on Brown's not getting the location of the Mona Lisa right, though? That was plain stupid. I mean, I've never gone further than high school and I'm not trying to write a credible book (fiction or otherwise) that goes into great detail about Da Vinci's work and I knew it was wrong.