beannashi

Of the three Dan Brown books I've read, I think I liked this one slightly more than Angels and Demons and slightly less than The DaVinci Code. As a novel, I tend to hate Dan Brown's style of writing. It's repetitive, consists of way more "tell" than "show", and randomly switches to throw-away characters' perspectives whenever a scene feels too slow (I assume). That said, I don't read solely for literary merit - Brown's books feel like reading wikipedia but more fun. I enjoy the factual tidbits, the cryptology, and the way he draws connections. I remember when I first read the DaVinci code, my impression was that Brown sounded like someone who wanted to write a textbook on his subject, but couldn't string fact together satisfactorily, so he wrote fiction. That opinion holds true for the Lost Symbol. In this book Robert Lagden is his usual know-it-all self, the female lead, Katherine, is still the damsel in distress but is less obviously a romantic target (in fact, although she seems to throw herself at Langden a few times, he pretty much ignores her attempts). The plot twist at the end concerning the villain should have been obvious - in fact, I would have been disappointed in Brown if the twist hadn't so neatly wrapped up the villain's motivations - but it still took me by surprise. I felt like this book had a slower pace than the previous two I've read - maybe because so much of it takes place in the damned Capitol, or maybe because I listened to the audio version and couldn't speed through like I normally do. Overall, it was an enjoyable way to spend a car trip, and made me want to revisit some DC icons.

2022-11-14 13:32