BOOK REVIEW : ORIGIN BY DAN BROWN

“Robert”, Ambra whispered, “just remember the wise words of Disney’s Princess Elsa”

Langdon turned. “I am sorry?”

Ambra smiled softly. “Let it go.”

Origin is the fifth installment in the Robert Langdon series by Dan Brown. This was a much anticipated book as Dan Brown has a huge readership.

We get to see much of the Harvard professor, Robert Langdon as he navigates the dangers in the beautiful and enigmatic cities of Spain along with the director of Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Ambra Vidal to acquire a password which will help them unveil a groundbreaking scientific discovery, after a murder takes place in a high profile event. The story has a wide array of characters, there are religious leaders, Spanish royalty and an extremely advanced supercomputer.

Origin takes us through the cities of of Bilbao, Madrid and Barcelona in Spain. Edmond Kirsch, a billionaire computer scientist of world renown is an outspoken atheist and has finally  found conclusive answers to the two questions that have been eluding humans for years:

Where do we come from?

Where are we going?

And his findings have the potential to shake the foundations of the religions across world. Which is exactly what he plans to do.

This book is a typical Dan Brown thriller with elaborate descriptions of every nook and cranny of the places Langdon visits, lots of cliffhangers every now and then, a lot of symbols and not to forget, Langdon’s eidetic memory.

So much happens simultaneously in the story, that as readers, our mind goes all over the place. This book is fraught with a great deal of details about various scientific aspects that helped Edmond Kirsch unearth the answers to the two above mentioned questions. Honestly, it was somewhat tiresome to read all those details because I am never really thrilled to read all the scientific jargon and these explanations in addition to the detailed descriptions of all the places made the book very lengthy. Owing to all the above, my focus shifted from the story to the facts mentioned and my attention wandered from time to time.

Considering it was a long time before the suspense was finally revealed, as to what were the earth shattering answers to the two fundamental questions of human existence, I wasn’t exactly blown away. It was nothing I hadn’t expected. The truth is revealed dramatically which was fun to read but the answers did not impress me that much. I felt that the other part of the story where the murder gets committed was overshadowed by Edmond Kirsch’s discovery and the sensation surrounding it and even with all the mystery surrounding the murders, I was able to identify the catch and it really made me sad that I was more or less right because spoiled the thrill for me.

All this being said, the story was still intriguing and it did manage to capture my interest right from the beginning and kept me engaged right till the end and I never felt like putting the book down. Origin wasn’t exactly as racy and fast paced as I would have liked it to be but it wasn’t a boring read either.

Overall, I have mixed feeling about Origin but it still not a bad read and I still enjoyed reading it mostly but Inferno remains my favourite Dan Brown book and Origin did not manage take its place.

My Rating – 3.5/5 stars

Want to read Origin? Get it here.