Review: #39
Title: The Lost Symbol
Series: Robert Langdon (not official title) - 3rd book
Author: Dan Brown
Read Before: no
My Comments: It began a bit boring and not as interesting as the previous two books, it only really starts picking up after around 100 pages or so. I think the whole mystery of this book (the masons) is not as intriguing as the Holy Grail or the Antimatter. The characters aren’t as good as well, especially Robert’s sidekick for this book, she feels lacking, they’re not as attractive and easily absorbed or understood. In the first half of the book, there’s not as clear an objective as the previous two books, and the antagonist’s motives aren’t as justified yet, so it’s really hard to understand what is driving these characters. As the story progressed I could not help but feel that the plot is not as captivating as The Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons, it seems that the stuff in it is too far fetched, the previous books pushed the boundaries and the revelations made sense and were interesting, this one seemed… lacking. The codes were not as interesting, and there’s really no likeable characters, the book feels just a tad bit too long, especially the end (where it tries to ‘reveal’ everything but it pretty much fails), between each cliffhanger there is too long a break, I just feel that the story was ‘padded’ out too much. Not to say that this is a bad book, but being the third in the series, the expectations were a bit high. As a reader, it was harder to sympathize and understand the motives of the antagonist and that’s where it loses the marks. This book just doesn't have the same level of ‘pull’.
Rating: 7/10
Rereadability Factor: 2/10