The (not so) Lost Symbol !!??

N gave me Dan Brown's latest offering, 'The Lost Symbol', as a gift a few weeks ago, and checked with me soon after to compare views. I was in chapter 3 then, and loving it. Should've suspected something when she said "okay, I don't want to give away anything, we'll catch up when you're done". The book has been been a nice enough bedtime read for the last couple of weeks, but when it was finally over, I was outraged by the con-job Dan Brown has pulled on his unsuspecting readers.

The book does start well, and there are some really gripping chapters. Especially the cat and mouse game in the dark lab. And the inevitable plot twist wasn't too bad (though you can figure it out before the reveal). But thats about it...

It is soon revealed that the lost 'symbol' is not a symbol at all, but a word, and then revealed it is not really a word but a book, which isn't lost either, but is in fact the most published book in the world! (So why is it called the 'lost symbol' again?) The 'revelation' at the end makes you go "OMG!!! I want my money back, you conman". If that was it, then why the secrecy, the multi-layered puzzles etc.?? It was really irritating to think back about the number of times the cheesy line 'tonight the pyramid and the capstone were far closer than they should be' was used if the secret wasn't a secret at all!!!

Wanted to write a review here about how Robert Langdon's IQ has dropped atleast 40 points since 'Da Vinci Code' (maybe because he is the process of morphing into Dan Brown), how all he does in the book is get himself into sticky situations from which someone else rescues him, barely solves a couple of puzzles by himself and keeps on saying "that's not possible...(shown that yes it is)...OMG I never thought that was possible". And most of the other characters and plot situations give you a 'deja-vu' feeling [isn't this villain a variation of another psycho, muscular, high IQ, cold-blooded killer in another one of DB's earlier books?, haven't pyramids with secrets been done to death already in the DVC? Didn't Angel's and Demon's also have a father-son relationship with a twist? and so on.......]

But then I was pretty sure that there would be plenty of other outraged readers who felt the same, so checked my favorite source for book reviews - Amazon. [Incidentally, Amazon was one of the leaders in the hype-creation in the virtual world before this book was released. I remember seeing the equivalent of a full page ad on their home page a while ago. Things went very quiet when the 1-3 star review count became double the 4-5 star ones] Reading the reviews turned to be more fun that reading the book :)) See: http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Symbol-Dan-Brown/product-reviews/0385504225/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 for some entertaining thoughts from others who felt equally cheated by 'The Lost Symbol'