If you want in on the book ray, let me know.

Here is my review:

I love and adore Angels and Demons and The Davinci Code, but Brown's past two books were hard to get through and felt like I was walking in mud.

I won't rehash the plot, we all know it involves The Devine Comedy.

There are a lot of problems with this one. 1) First, there are far too many characters to keep straight. To make matters worse, we get a background on each character, even the minor ones. It's just a lot of useless information to slow the plot down. I don't need or want to know the background of every character. 2) This reads like a travel brochure or an Art History book. Every city Langdon visits, we get the background on: who built it and when. We also get the exact layout of everything. Far too much needless information. Same goes for every piece of Art that Langdon sees, we get to know who built it, when it was built, and why it was built. This just isn't for the main pieces or art in the book, but for everything that Langdon sees, even if it's in passing. Then we get Langdon's view on the piece of art. All useless information. 3) The language. I get that Dan Brown can research the Italian language, but he puts it in the book, and over half of the time, there is not a translation, so I have no clue what the character is saying, I don't speak Italian. Now, sometimes there are translations, for for at least half of the book, there is no translations. It just slows everything down. 4) At one point, Langdon and her heroine goes to one place, and nothing happens. They figure out that they need to go someplace else, and they go. There was no reason to have them to go to that first place. We don't learn anything new.

I think that part of the problem is that Dan Brown believes his own hype. He's moved away from what made Angels and Demons and The Davinci Code a success in order to make a longer book, that's full of useless detail.

I hate to say it, but I think the Dan Brown ride might be over for me, it was fun while it lasted.

If you want in on the Ray for this book, let me know. Also let me know if you ship in or out of the USA.

Perryfran-USA
Meekachu07
Bookworm-lady - International
silvia-pco
Charlotte1924-International
QueenSissi-International
Ftarazu
Carelaisa-USA/Canada
JDT-USA
Rrrcaron

Received in the mail today and am looking forward to reading this. I have always enjoyed the Dan Brown books and hopefully this will not disappoint - we'll see! Thanks buffyfan for sending this out as a ray.

Update 6/10/13: Started reading today. So far so good!

Well, I'm glad to say that I was NOT disappointed by this one. It may not have been as good as The Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons but I enjoyed it nonetheless. True it did contain a lot of "travelogue" information but I found most of this to be quite fascinating including the descriptions of Florence, Venice, and Istanbul. As usual, it makes me want to learn more about these places and their history -- especially, the Medicis of Florence and the doges of Venice. Someday, I would also like to visit Italy and see first-hand the works of art and spectacular cathedrals and museums.. I should also read Dante's Divine Comedy -- I have a copy of this that has been sitting on my shelf for years. As far as the overall plot of the novel, I thought it was a great thriller with Langdon and the WHO in pursuit of a deadly virus set to decimate earth's population. The premise of the dangers of overpopulation were also quite overwhelming as presented -- overpopulation of the earth being a disease with global warming, famine, water shortages, etc. being the symptoms. Overall, I would give this a strong recommendation.

Thanks buffyfan for sending this out as a bookray. I will be getting it in the mail to the next reader tomorrow.

Off to Meekachu07 in Minnesota. Enjoy!

USPS Tracking # 9549010691553168387015

Just got this today. Will set my other book aside and begin this ASAP.

Just finished this up last night. If I hadn't gone camping I would have finished it sooner and was happy to home to get it started again.

I don't want to reveal too much, but not sure how I felt about the main threat, a bit different from the normal Brown, but still very enjoyable.

I will get this moving along at the end of this week.

Thanks for sharing!

Shipping to Murtosa, Portugal on either Friday or Saturday to the next reader. Thanks for allowing me to participate.

The book arrived today! Unfortunately I can't say it has arrived safe and sound... the envelope it came in was ripped open and it has a huge break and tear both on the dustcover and the hardcover. I took some pictures with my webcam so that you can have a better idea, sorry about the bad quality. It really bummed me out to see the state it arrived in. I patched it up with some tape so that it won't suffer any more damage while I handle it. I'm sorry about this :/

http://fotos.sapo.pt/silviaxpto/fotos/image/?uid=aYP9VCQ4c8kddez9GCmD
http://fotos.sapo.pt/silviaxpto/fotos/image/?uid=hww0SZ6SW6Hk2zPh5WfS
http://fotos.sapo.pt/silviaxpto/fotos/image/?uid=FnYgHKBAA0nZgCFWz1aB

Just finished this last night. Even though it didn't match up to The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons, which are by far my favourite books by Dan Brown, this one managed to step up from The Lost Symbol, that was a bit of a disappointment for me. Dan Brown has his one "magic formula" to create gripping stories, but I'm glad he managed to step a little bit away from the previous plots he had written. Inferno feels like a breath of fresh air, I very much liked that the "enemy" was a bit different from previous ones, and I quite liked the ending as well.

As always that are twists and turns that are part of that "magic formula", and even though I was expecting them to happen, I didn't see them coming. Dan Brown also manages to raise awareness on a very pressing matter such as world's overpopulation. The way he presents the issue is really engineered to make you think and the solution that ultimately comes up in the story is as much crazy as it is logical. This really gave me some food for thought.

Overall, an amazing book. I'm glad I had the chance to read it!
I will be contacting Charlotte1924 so that it may continue its journey. Hopefully it'll have a smoother trip this time around!

Book is on its way to Charlotte1924! Happy reading!

tbr as part of a bookray so will try to read this week and post on :-)

posted to next in list

With me now. Looking forward to read it...
Thanks for sharing!

I really enjoyed this one. It reminded me the first Dan Brown books that I so much liked reading such as The Da Vinci Code. Besides addressing a very pertinent matter in the current society (and a tricky one), the turns of events in the book are unexpected. In the end, one even wonders if the proposed solution is not a good one, even though tremendously cruel….
What I also always love about his books are the descriptions of the historic and cultural symbols depicted in the buildings and cities. I really enjoyed revisiting Florence (a wonderful city) and Venice through this book. And it also increased my desire to visit Istanbul.

Thanks so much for sharing buffyfan.
Will be sent as soon as I have an address…

Sent yesterday to Carelaisa.

received the book last week but only got around the computer today to register it.

thanks buffyfan for sharing it with us and Ftarazu for sending it my way.

Where do I start? I actually don’t really know where to start, so I’ll put it this way: not the best book of the year, or of the decade! I don’t know what Dan Brown keeps writing books, as they get more repetitive and tedious, not easy to follow, with way too many characters in it. And he even needs to do a thorough background story of these unnecessary characters, making the story even longer than it was needed. I read it because I was curious where the author wanted to go with Dante’s classic, The Divine Comedy, but again, he somehow overused a classic in a way-too-long story. Overall, this book shouldn’t have seen the day of light, in my opinion, and it’s the last one I’ll read by Dan brown. I much prefer, in the same genre, Raymond Khoury – shorter, simpler and lots more of realistic action.

I am pm'ing the next reader to get an address to send the book to.

EDIT: May 27 - JDT has already a copy of the book; pm'ing the next person.

EDIT 2: I have yet to hear from Rrrcaron, so sent another pm today, June 9.

EDIT 3: As of today, June 25, the book is officially on its way to Rrrcaron.

I received this book in the mail a few days ago. I can't wait to start it!