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A review by wolfdyke
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
1.0
I don't expect hard-hitting literature full of stunning prose from Dan Brown, but I at least expect something enjoyable. Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code may not be amazingly written, but they're fun and engaging. The Lost Symbol bored me to no end.
Despite having a personal investment in this mystery compared to the previous two (his own close friend been kidnapped and tortured), Robert Langdon is far more passive in The Lost Symbol. For the first significant chunk, he's just getting dragged from place to place by other people. This happens in the other two as well, to be clear, but he typically becomes more proactive sooner. In addition, in my opinion at least, he was dumbed down a noticeable amount. It took far longer than it did in the previous two novels for Langdon to decipher each clue, and for every one he would get it wrong the first time and needed heavy hints from someone else to get it right.
The villain twist was clear from very early, making the villain chapters incredibly boring. I can't promise that I didn't skip some of them, as once you guess the stupid twist they're basically pointless.
The entire reasoning behind the CIA's involvement is idiotic and the ending in general is dissatisfying and hard to follow. I literally just read this book but I don't think I could give you a coherent summary of the climax.
Despite having a personal investment in this mystery compared to the previous two (his own close friend been kidnapped and tortured), Robert Langdon is far more passive in The Lost Symbol. For the first significant chunk, he's just getting dragged from place to place by other people. This happens in the other two as well, to be clear, but he typically becomes more proactive sooner. In addition, in my opinion at least, he was dumbed down a noticeable amount. It took far longer than it did in the previous two novels for Langdon to decipher each clue, and for every one he would get it wrong the first time and needed heavy hints from someone else to get it right.
The villain twist was clear from very early, making the villain chapters incredibly boring. I can't promise that I didn't skip some of them, as once you guess the stupid twist they're basically pointless.
The entire reasoning behind the CIA's involvement is idiotic and the ending in general is dissatisfying and hard to follow. I literally just read this book but I don't think I could give you a coherent summary of the climax.