i wanted to like this book because lots of other people do. although the plot is great, with plenty of twists and turns, the storytelling is dull.

with the exception of maybe Teabing, the characters are flat. we don’t really get to know them because Dan Brown relies too heavily on dialogue to tell the story and move the plot, rather than the characters’ actions (in addition to the dialogue). by the end of the book, what do we really know about Langdon or Sophie? have their characters developed during the course of their quest? no.

the characters’ interior dialogue was annoying. i especially found it irksome when Brown has the European characters thinking to themselves in American idioms.

i thought, too, that this was going to be an intelligent story. rather, i felt that my intelligence was insulted. though i appreciated the historical references, the puzzles and clues Langdon and Sophie had to solve were way too simple. i found it hard to believe that these scholars couldn’t figure some of these things out.

i sure hope the movie is a lot better!