Reviews by Nathanael

For all the critics raving and rabid fan reaction I expected the intelligent, thought provoking, cultured, and believable thriller that everyone seems to claim it to be.

Instead I found a book that was nothing more than poorly researched pulp trash dressed up nicely. This would not be a problem in itself (beyond the dishonesty of Dan Brown's claim to command of the facts which are lain down as real world truths) but the book itself is full of flat, lifeless characters who offer no real personality to their personae beyond making stupid mistakes that nobody in their position should be making. This is compounded by a complete lack of suspense as every single one of the supposed 'revelations' comes as no surprise. Indeed, you are often wondering what is taking Brown so long to get on with it and reveal the twist which you have doubtless guessed at least a good few chapters before it happens. The inability of the main characters (who are supposedly extremely intelligent people and experts in their fields) to solve simple puzzles is the cause of many an infuriatingly slow ordeal in intellectual anguish as the listener. You will find yourself fruitlessly urging Brown to get the plot moving so that you can feel marginally less ripped off by getting to the end and moving on to the next book.

For the record; the Louvre Pyramid has 673 panes of glass, not the 666 that Dan Brown claims, and that is one of the most inoffensive of the factual errors in the book.

This is a book wrapped in pretension and attempted intellectualism that manages only to do a bad job of retreading the modern day Knights Templar conspiracy genre with poor narratives, clumsily handled concepts, and a cop out ending that leaves an even worse taste in the mouth than the rest of the novel. You'd be better off reading any one of the countless books on the subject as both fact and fiction is available that is far more fascinating and entertaining than this derivative drivel.

This book has kept me enthralled the whole time with the beautiful narrative, the vivid verbal imagery, and the characters who have been drawn so real that I grew to love them as though they were old friends. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll share their joy, as well as their pain, and if you're anything like me, you'll be feeling tears threatening to well up inside over the inevitable ending for the last third of the book.

The inevitability of the ending sits perfectly with the concept of time travel that Audrey Niffenegger has painted throughout the book, and it sits perfectly with the whole story.

The theme is love, and there hasn't been a love more real in writing that I have ever seen.