Angels & Demons

This is incredibly long overdo. Tis the season for many book reviews, though, and holy Mothra do I have reviews.

We will first start off with Angels and Demons, the first of five books concerning Robert Langdon by Dan Brown. Yes, this series. I am sure you have seen at least one of the movies starring Tom Hanks. I had only seen Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code so being able to read the books was an experience.

In Angels and Demons, Robert Langdon works with a top scientist from CERN to stop a terrorist from detonating a groundbreaking antimatter experiment, killing everyone in Vatican City, as well as venture all over Vatican City and Rome studying art and history and mythology in order to save the four cardinals in favor of becoming the next Pope; so many tasks to complete in order to succeed.

Out of the five books, I think this was one was one of my favorite. It was a good introduction to Langdon as a character and looking at art from a different angle than just someone appreciating art. There was backstory to everything about him, providing answers to why’s that maybe did not need to get explained because it adds nothing to his current situation, such as the Mickey Mouse watch. I mean, maybe it’s supposed to be Brown adding dimension to a character who is super smart and handsome and athletic, and he needs a legit thing with a backstory to make him look like an actual nice and kind person. Whereas with Vittoria and the Camerlengo there was backstory, but given at the pertinent times and only what was necessary to keep the story interesting and moving forward.

I thought that clashing religion with science on the stage of a bomb threat on the eve of voting for the next Pope was an interesting plot. Adding the source of the evil be the Illuminati and using art to get to the solution makes for an interesting adventure. Regardless of the false information that Dan Brown uses in his books, the argument of science vs religion has rang true for the last forever, and there is always an argument within religion on how conservative or progressive to be as science continually discovers something new. I had to constantly remind myself while reading to not get caught up in reading into everything. I would always think of the Rick and Morty episode where all they were doing was making fun of everyone reading really deep into things that don’t need to be read into. I think I just explained conspiracy theories [??]. 

I appreciate that Robert would treat Vittoria as an equal; they worked together bringing in information from their respective fields. On the flip side, I don’t think Vittoria was treated as an equal by Dan Brown. The main character was clearly solely Robert and Vittoria was a sidekick. For the sake of reviewing this as a book standing alone, it wouldn’t have bothered me so much. As the first in a series, again it doesn’t bother me… yet.

I did not keep this book once I finished it, but I had hopped into a reading surge so I moved right into the next book in the series, which I will post the review pretty quick here. I would say Angels and Demons is an alright book if you’re looking for adventure involving puzzles, artistic intrigue mixed with ancient organizations. If you wanted to check it out, you’ll be able to find it here.

8/10