The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown
Pages: 597
Released: March 8, 2006

The Da Vinci Code
Summary: Enter, prologue. There is a murder taking place, the curator of the Louvre (Paris art museum) is standing at gunpoint. The weapon holder is a man who requests the location of a keystone. Given no other option, the curator is shot after telling the man the supposed location of the keystone. The bullet pierces him, but leaves him with 15 minutes left to live. With little time left, the curator must not let the secret die and prepares himself. End prologue. The story follows a Harvard symbologist, Robert Langdon and his journey along with Sophie Nuveau, a cryptologist. They are left with the clues and pieces to figure out the mystery and what the curator died trying to protect. Along with this, Robert and Sophie are being chased throughout Europe by the "bad guys" and authorities. Find out what happens in this epic mystery/adventure as they try and solve the enigma that the curator has left for them.

My Thoughts: Woohoo, finished it.

What I liked: This story was so wow. I love how the elements of the story fit together so perfectly. Dan Brown was able to use history and art combined with his fictional writing to create a very realistic storyline. I liked how I was able to learn a lot of interesting historical/fun facts from this and I was turning the page to find out what was going to happen to our characters (bad and good). I love the humor that was placed in this and the dialogue was very well written. Brown does a good job explaining the history without it being dry because he does it through a character's thoughts or dialogue. This is a personal connection, but I was able to like this book and understand it well because I took two art history classes and an architecture one. I also had fun googling the info. mentioned in the book.

What I disliked: Although this is an adventure book, I must say, I found myself putting it down more than usual. Perhaps because I was used to YA fiction and how fast I turn the pages. I would say this is a slower read (perhaps just for me) because you're absorbing so much information and this story does not really give you a lots of breathing room (meaning there is a lot of information piled on the reader throughout the book).

Conclusion: This is not a book for everyone though. It is controversial (from my understanding--check out goodreads! There are so many 1 star reviews... I don't think any book is a 1 star so far in my mind. I would say don't pay attention to those 1 star reviews and pick up the book to see if you'll like it or not). If you're pious, I would not recommend the book for you because of the reaction I have seen in the 1 star reviews. Personally I enjoyed this book and didn't really find it confusing (except at some parts where the characters were able to draw information from such small/vague/somewhat useless clues). Just try and overlook the 1 star reviews.

4.5/5 stars


Source: Library.