Book Review: Angels & Demons

Angels & Demons by Dan Brown


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I have to say I'm not impressed with Brown's work. I remember reading the Da Vinci Code when it came out and everyone was gaga for it, and I unimpressed then too. I had heard this one was better, but no.

Although the plot moves right along and is engaging, I found myself laughing at the writing most of the time. The first bit that clued me in to the bad writing was the description of the protagonist, along with the revelation of his nickname. Come on, really?

Another unintentionally laughable moment:"He never suspected that later that night, in a country hundreds of miles away, the information would save his life."

And my favorite ridiculous statement:"The marble cushioned his fall with all the grace of cold steel."

Seriously? This was a NYT best-seller? I give it two stars because it had some redeeming moments (the scene with Vittoria and her adoptive father discussing girls doing math was the best moment of the whole book) and it certainly was a fast read. But for guilty-pleasure reading I liked the Twilight series better - she does better cliff-hanger chapter endings and she appeals to the 13 year old girl in me. You should skip this one, really.

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Holly's Monday Night Chicken Salad Sammiches

Start by taking the chicken out of the fridge. You know, leftover from when you made roasted chicken on Saturday night. Yeah that one. The one you should have dealt with on Sunday but were "too busy" napping to get around to.

So, take that out, and pull all the rest of the meat from the bones. Put the bones in the freezer for chicken soup later, because you're certainly not making chicken stock right now. Put half of the chicken meat in the freezer too, so that you can use it for soup once you're done cooking the carcass for stock. Now chop the rest of the chicken.

Chop a stalk of celery and dump it on top of the chicken. Throw the rest of the celery away as it appears to be perhaps growing something un-celery like.

Add some dried cranberries because they are really good in chicken salad. Also add some chopped pecans because you saw them in the freezer when you put the chicken bits in there and you thought they might be a good crunchy compliment to the cranberries.

Put a spoonful of mayo on top, and some mustard. Season with some curry powder. Stir it up. Taste it, and use more curry powder. Maaaaaaybe a little more than that. Hmmm. Add more mustard, that will give it more tang. Eh, good enough at this point, you *are* hungry you know.



Now toast some potato bread slices, and wash a few romaine lettuce leaves. On one slice of toast spread a little mayo and mustard, but not too much. Put the lettuce on that side. On the other slice of bread spread the chicken salad. Put sammich together, and cut each in half for ease of snarfling. (notice that snarfling does not anger the spell check gods like your original version of the word "spoonfull" does) Serve with baby carrots, and some music. The Decemberists are a good compliment to this meal, or perhaps even Ben Folds Five.