Like all Dan Brown books, the prose was completely dry, boring, and lacking in emotion. I just read a bunch of Dan's books in succession while watching his Masterclass videos. He offers some great story writing advice but I really don't care for the style of his own writing. It's a personal taste thing, so pay little attention to that If you happen to be a big Dan Brown fan.

One thing in Dan's Masterclass, that I now find extra funny after reading his books had to do with focusing on the how and not the what. he uses James Bond movies as an example; every one of them is the same. We all know there's going to be an evil villain that needs to be defeated with a global plot based on some form of greed. We know there will be two beautiful women, one working for the villain and one pure and good. (Bond will bed one of these women or both.) Bond will defeat the villain. He will have gadgets to do so. Etc., etc. when writing such a story, Dan instructs that the author should not worry so much about what happens but how everything happens. And now that I have peeked behind the Dan Brown curtain watching his Masterclass videos, his formula sticks out to me like a sore thumb. They are all the exact same story, just with a different setting (in Europe), a different beautiful woman whose great feminine beauty asexual Langdon appreciates but for whom he has no real sexual desire, a villain whose objective is supposed to leave us feeling ambivalent, his Mickey Mouse watch, lots of religious symbolism and Langdon's agnostic view of those symbols, etc. etc.

I had a lot of fun reading the formulaic Harry Potter books but Dan Brown and HIS formula is just not for me.