Monday, July 1, 2013

Inferno by Dan Brown


Book:  Inferno

Author:  Dan Brown 

Grade:  C- 

Recommended to:  People who like short spurts of action interspersed with a bunch of architecture and art they don't care about. 

Okay, Fine.  I should know by now that if you read a Dan Brown book it isn't really about the characters or the storyline, but about how much Dan Brown knows about art and architecture.  He's bragging in these books.  He did it in   Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and whatever that last one was that really sucked.

I feel like each page is just a repeat of "Oooo, look at me, I can describe 10,000 buildings in Europe and make a 100 page book into 460 pages."   This book is full of irritating bits where Robert Langdon is running from someone and then stops to admire the fresco painted by an artist I've never heard of and can't pronounce.  It is like Brown copied and pasted "Robert Langdon couldn't help but admire _______ , the gunshots rang behind him and he suddenly remembered that he wasn't on a freaking pleasure trip."

Hagia Sophia.

Oh, what?  What was that I just did there?  Did I just create a two word paragraph for dramatic effect in the middle of a chapter?  Yes.  Yes. I did.  Because I'm Dan Brown and I think the enter key is my BFF.  My eyes nearly rolled out of my head because he did this 1,000 times during this book.  Are there 1,000 chapters, you ask.  Nearly. This book clocks in a 104 very short chapters plus an epilogue.

The ending of this book also sucked a little.  There was a ton of drama, twists, turns, and action in the first 440 pages of the book and then the ending fell flat for me.  I won't give anything away here because this is a very popular book, but the ending seemed false.

I actually yelled at this book a few times.  That's not a good sign.  There are many books I dislike that don't cause me to shout, but Robert Langdon and his stuffy, stupid, Harris Tweed did me in.  I can't relate to him, I'm not interested in him and although I appreciate the gift of this book from my beautiful sister, I can't in good conscience recommend this book at any grade above a C Minus.  

Happy Reading!!