Eragon

Hi. Eragon is a really awesome book by Christopher Paolini. It's about a boy named Eragon who finds a stone that turns out to be a dragon egg. I won't say anymore for fear of giving away to much of the plot line. The book is way way way better than the movie, so if you've seen the movie you should definitely read the book. If you haven't seen the movie, you should definitely read the book anyway.

The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown

If you enjoyed Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code then you'll probably enjoy reading The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown's third installation with Robert Langden.

The book is set in Washington D.C. in the US. This made me a little wary that the book may not be as good as the previous two, because it was set in the US (and what's the US got to offer in terms of ancient history, architecture and secret societies?)

But, it turned out that there were lots of the things mentioned above in the US, which is what Brown, once again, based his book upon. I won't spoil the book, but it's about Freemasonry and some sort of science that ties in with a certain secret. Don't worry if you don't know anything about Freemasonry, I didn't either and all went well while reading. There's a part where they kind of give you a simplified version of what it is.

The book is 509 pages, according to my memory, so it does take a while to read, unless you're absolutely captivated by it, and can't put it down. I had to study for exams and tried to squeeze the book in at home, but I was banned from reading it. So I had to read it during interval everyday. The book would be hard to read for some people, but even so, if those people take it slowly, it should go down well (have bitesize pieces).

Once again, the Brown formula is reused. Robert Langdon gets a strange summons, and has to save someone's life again. I thought the book was excellent, just the build up wasn't quite as good as the other two, and the "twists" aren't as good as the other ones as well. Also, the parts where Brown sort of wanders off into the history of something isn't quite as fascinating as The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons which tells me that he would have been better off sticking with something in Europe (we all know Europe is better than America!) Regardless of all that however, his writing style does keep the pages turning which is good.

Finally, I think that die-hard fans of Brown will thoroughly enjoy this book, however his familiar plot ideas and writing style does make you want to read more, but it is sort of predictable. Regardless of this, I still thought the book was excellent, but if it was set in Europe I daresay this book would have ascended to 'fantastic'.

It gets an 8/10 from me...