Book Review - The Lost Symbol

Before reading this let us make a quick check list:

Angels and Demons - Read it
The DaVinci Code - Read it

p.s. Don't worry about the movies.

Ok now we are familiar with Dan Brown and his character Robert Langdon, who is the lead role as a Professor of Symbolism who finds his way into crazy situations where he is the only person capable of deciphering symbolic messages. The Lost Symbol doesn't stray from the formula. Unfortunately unlike the story lines where the point of Langdon's adventure makes some kind of sense, this is not the case. The whole story is spurred on by this demi-god-like man who is searching for the lost secret of the Masons. Masonic culture is very richly ingrained in the history of our country so a lot of that aspect of the story was interesting although somewhat fictional I am sure. The part of the book that disappointed me was the villain who gives himself several different names throughout the story. He believes that there is a magical power that will turn him into an all powerful god, and you know right then that this story is going to be a let down because it is spurred on by some moron who thinks there is magic, you know there won't be any magic.

So while the story still has the excitement of the chasing and puzzles, the expected end result of the villain isn't even plausible, so you know it is all a waste of time. There isn't even a great moral victory for the end, no new knowledge or anything. The only positive part of the story line was the beliefs of the Masons and how they view religion (all which could have been learned by looking at their Wikipedia page I am sure).

I would not recommend reading this, if you really feel the need to do so get it from the library for FREE it is not worth paying any money for. The only thing that kept me going was the hope that maybe I was wrong...but I wasn't. I really hope this isn't made into a movie, it would be a gigantic waste of time and money and you are better than that Tom Hanks.