Two Books

The Lost Symbol

Very disappointing. I liked Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code too much. It wasn't like I had a super high expectation about The Lost Symbol anyway cos I've heard bad things about Dan Brown's other books after A&D and DVC. But I wasn't expecting such a bad book. I mean, there're bits and pieces about it that are quite neat.

However, he breaks the story but either flashing back into the past or by long-winded explanations about some ancient history or history of brotherhood. I mean, it's not a bad thing to do flashbacks and explanations but it's just way too much. It means the story goes too slowly. I found myself getting very frustrated by these breaking of the main storyline and was wishing that the story would pick up its pace and be more exciting.

Not only did those flashbacks/explanations breaks the storyline, they are also annoyingly repetitive. I seriously wonder if Dan Brown was getting paid by the number of pages/words that he wrotes so that he just fill the book with repetitive junk to make it a big book. Basically, the whole book is around this one thing and one organization that he just kept going on and on and on about it. I mean, yes, A&D and DVC are also about one main concept and one organization but it also involves a lot of other things like paintings and architectures and the whole theory was so convincing, so believable.

And there was the suspense of who the bad guy was in A&D and DVC. In LS, the bad guy was obvious from the beginning, even though there was a bit of a twist at the end but the whole story simply wasn't as grasping as A&D and DVC. I also found the "connections" or "evidence" that supports the hypothesis in LS a little bit of a stretch. I wasn't very convinced at all. The book also not as well-written to the point that I want to know what happen next or that I care about the characters at all. Part of it probably goes back to the problem of the storyline getting broken all the time so it's just hard to really get into the story.

If you really liked A&D and DVC, do not read LS... u will probably be disappointed. But if you do read it, please let me know what you think. I want to know if the book actually sucks as bad as I think or that I had too much of an expectation of it to causes my harsh criticism.

The Kite Runner

This one on the other hand, my friend, is a good book. Borrowed this book a little while ago. Has been sitting on my coffee table for a while before I finally decided to pick it up. I really didn't plan to read it but someone, someone insisted that I borrowed it so I under the circumstances of 盛情難卻底下借了回家的。

I don't usually read the preface of books but this time I did. I had to agree with the authur, "Who wants to read a book about two Afghan boys anyway?" (or something along similar lines) But 我盆住反正都借咗，睇吓都好，唔好睇至多咪唔睇既心態下，I started reading. Quite easy to read. A bit sad and depressing at points. It reminds me a little bit of Slumdog but at the same time, it's very different from Slumdog.

Well-written book. I found a lot of books, famous or not, using legthy paragraphs to describes the environment and yet I don't really 'see' it. The way the author describes the surroundings are just恰到好處, not too 長氣兼沉氣，but enough to give you a vivid picture in your head.

And I did really immersed in the story, especially at the sad points. Gd book but only read it when you are prepared for it. It's not a light story.