A Review of Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown is the prequel to The Da Vinci Code. If you read The Da Vinci Code and liked it then you are going to love Angels & Demons. Angels and Demons is a thrilling adventure story full of mysteries and puzzles to be solved. The historical elements and information about the Vatican and Catholic Church make it hard to remember that this book is fiction.

The basic premise for the book is that symbologist and professor Robert Langdon teams up with CERN scientist Vittoria Vetra to prevent the destruction of the Vatican. The Illuminati rears it's head and, through the theft of a sample of antimatter, plans to destroy the Vatican. A new pope is being chosen at this time as well. The race to find the antimatter and save the Vatican takes place in a matter of 24 hours. The entire book is full of fun facts and interesting information about how a pope is chosen, secrets of the Vatican and also secrets about Rome. Ambigrams and puzzles make the story interesting in another way as you try to figure out who, and what, is at the root of the affair.

This book is a fast read and hard to put down. I enjoyed reading all of the information about art and architecture as well as the historical information about the church and the pope. It did have areas where you had to suspend your disbelief and just go with the story. It also had moments that dragged occasionally, with descriptions and backstory of characters that just felt like they were more than necessary.

The overall theme of this book seems to be that religion and science have struggled to coexist for thousands of years. Now, in modern ages, it should be possible for them to have respect for one another and support each other. The struggle between the science based Illuminati and the spiritual based Catholic church make this book fascinating to read. It's not just things blowing up and people getting killed that make this a great read.

Overall, this is a fun book to read with a great story line. It is, in my opinion, a much better book than The Da Vinci Code. The plot is more believable, the characters well written and the pace fast enough to leave you gasping throughout the majority of the book. If you read no other book written by Dan Brown, make this the one.