The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown - 5 Stars

By A. M. Buckle (Source)

"I CANT WRITE MUCH ABOUT THIS BOOK AS I AM STILL READING IT BUT IT IS HARD TO PUT DOWN SO THAT PROVES THAT IT IS A GOOD BOOK SO FAR AND IT GETS BETTER AND BETTER."

Review of Review: Some books are just too good. Some books just make you want to run to the computer and dash off a review before you've even finished reading it. The Lost Symbol is, perhaps, just such a book.

Poor A.M. Buckle must have legged it to the keyboard, so excited was she, and attempted to type. But then she realised that she still had the book in her hand. "Damn it," she undoubtedly thought. "How on earth am I supposed to type when I've got a book in my hand?"

She tried to put it down, so that she could give us her views. Lord, she tried to put it down. But could she? No. Because it is so hard to put down. The best she could do was to wrest one hand away from the magnetic tome.

Then she started to type, but she had tremendous trouble using the Shift key as she was only using one hand. Luckily she remembered the Caps Lock button, which enabled her to type her review.

But it is, in the end and despite her heroic efforts, an Unhelpful Review because it is a review of only part of the "The Lost Symbol" experience. I mean, it's likely that the book continued to get better and better until the climax which would just about be the best thing that had ever been written.

But what if Dan Brown peaked three quarters of the way through? What if he resolved a cliffhanger with "Anyway, then Tom Hanks woke up and it had all been a dream?" And then the final quarter of the book was about him going to the shops and picking up the dry cleaning, and then going on Twitter and telling people about going to the shops and picking up the dry cleaning?

And then what if it went on with him seeing his wife at teatime and telling her about the funny dream he'd had about freemasons, and she said, "You've been eating cheese again at bedtime?" And then what if he said, "No, I'll tell you what it was, I was reading that book about freemasons. That'll be why?" And then what if he had his tea, and then he said, "Ooh, yes, I did have a bit of Red Leicester before I went up. You're right?"

In that case, I reckon A.M. Buckle's review could be considered misleading.