BOOK REVIEW ON ORIGIN BY DAN BROWN
The book’s protagonist is a Harvard professor of symbology and religious iconology, Robert
Langdon. It all starts when his former student Edmond Kirch discovers something that will
change the face of science forever. The unveiling happening at the Guggenheim Museum,
Bilbao is interrupted when Edmond Kirch gets shot. Langdon sets on a dangerous quest with
the museum director Ambra Vidal to locate a cryptic password that will unlock Kirch’s secret.
The book starts off really well, the suspense already building. But as in most books where
the suspense builds at the beginning of the book, it gets really boring by page 126. Dan
Brown has not improved since Inferno and the book seems like an elastic pulled to its
maximum. The book is therefore repetitive and one scene lasts for what seems like forever.
The murder of Edmond Kirch is dragged out too. It seems like Brown is trying to make the
book seem big while the story is just half of what he has written. Written in a concise
manner, the storyline would have been a lot more alluring.
Brown seems to be running out of ideas. The hunt for the prize in The Da Vinci Code
seemed a lot longer than what I read in Origin. The Da Vinci Code was the most pleasing
read among most books because of the great writing, the extensive research, the unravelling
of the most mind-boggling historical facts and the crazy hunt for the Holy Grail all across the
world. Origin lacks in most of the highlights of The Da Vinci Code except for the research
and a few facts that a huge percentage of today’s population do not know.
The big discovery that is supposed to change the lives of everyone is actually interesting.
One of the biggest plus points of Brown is that he comes up with something new and
interesting for every book. That really makes it unique and worth reading. This, particularly,
is the reason I still read Dan Brown.
The truth is hard and to tell the truth is to be brutal. Origin has a good storyline but to me, it
doesn’t deserve to be a bestseller and is one only due to Dan Brown’s reputation. Origin
could have been written better with a lot more substance in it.
I did enjoy reading it. It was well written but it is not Dan Brown at his best. He has frankly written
better books and will go down in history for them, but Origin is unlikely to be remembered. I
rate the book 2 out of 5 stars.
-Nidhi Bhavsar, Grade IX, Ekya School JP Nagar
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