SPOILER ALERT: Plots points and events are discussed, so stop reading NOW if you have not finished the book!

I don’t envy Dan Brown.  How in the world does anyone follow the best selling novel of all time?  What a mind-crushing task that must have been.

The book is the expected roller-coaster ride and many parts of it were great fun.  It includes the expected chase scenes and nail-biting close calls, along with lots of puzzles, mystical elements and symbols to decipher in cool ways.

I especially like the villain in this book, a hyper masculine tattooed crazy with delusions of saving the world from salvation.  His story and the surprises attached to it were one of the great pleasures of the book, and I found him a worthy foil for the adventure.

Also, I found the overall message of the book to be a good one, and one worth sharing with millions of readers.

But when this book is surely made into a movie, I will NOT be going to see it.  When I started the book I was looking forward to a fun thrill ride, but instead of the twists and turns of Space Mountain (or even The Hulk coaster), this speeding train takes us straight to Halloween Horror Nights.  Apparently Mr. Brown’s answer to how to “top” himself  was to add EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY terrifying thing he could imagine.  The situations read like a laundry list of mankind’s great phobias, including  drownings, dismemberment, being buried inside a tiny box in the dark, drowning inside a tiny box in the dark, being chased through a giant room in TOTAL darkness, death by fire, death by screw driver in the neck, death by home invasion, bleeding to death–it’s just exhausting.  It’s one thing to be forced to READ these passages, but there is no way I’m going to watch them actually happen on the big screen.

(I learned this lesson with “Revolutionary Road,” a gripping and shattering novel that was just too real on the screen.  Read the book instead!)

I’m not sorry I read this book, but I enjoyed both “DaVinci” and “Angels and Demons” much more.  His stories don’t need all this gore and blood to thrill us.  I’m glad to hear that Mr. Brown is now taking a vacation before resuming work!  I appreciate his talent and hope he gets back on track.