Codex (Paperback)

Eager to get going I ploughed through the beginnings of the story, disappointed with the flat and uninteresting characters, but still waiting for the real interesting stuff to kick in. Unfortunately, absolutlety nothing kicked in. There wasn't even a gentle prod.

While the history was quite interesting, the story I was hoping for failed to materialise and the characters just didn't have any spark.

If you're looking for a good page turner with some interesting histroical reference, then look somewhere else.

I found myself disliking Edward, the central character, more and more as the story progressed. He was portrayed as a hot shot, decisive and combative young banker with a great future ahead of him. However, within a matter of a couple of days he is prepared to give this all up for the chance of a working for some dotty English aristocrat. As the days pass by the guy descends into an aimless existence, supposedly obsessed with finding the missing Codex. At the outset of the story this guy was portrayed as decisive, give me a break he would find making a decision to change his underwear taxing.

The biggest disappointment of all was the ending, after wading through 350 pages I hoped to be rewarded with a twist or two at the end. Unfortunately, the final encounter between Edward and his employer is totally implausible and makes the whole story almost pointless. I was left with the distinct impression that after those 350 pages the author felt the same as me, he was bored with it and just wanted to get the book finished as soon as possible.

Some reviewers have alluded to a similarity between this book and the "Da Vinci Code" due to its connection with medieval artifacts, but the similarity ends there. Where Dan Brown moves the storyline along at a rapid pace, the Codex lumbers along. The author, Lev Grossman, fails to engage the reader in the story or allows you to either like or identify with either of the main characters. Whilst the blurb on the cover wisely avoids mentioning the "Da Vinci Code", it does draw parallels with "The Name of the Rose", but two books less alike I cannot imagine.

A reviewer from the San Francisco Chronicle said of the book "A genuine treat, with its sneaky plot and richly textured storytelling. It also moves so fast that readers won't realize how smart it is." I was left wondering if I had read the same book as this reviewer or perhaps I was just not smart enough to see all those sinister sub-plots!!

Finally, the best advice I can give anyone is if you want a good read, look elsewhere. Sorry to say this book will not be finding a permanent place on my bookshelves.

The characters are impossible to identify with - Edward, the 'hero', at times seems quite a cool, suave character, at others he seems a total loser playing for hours upon end on a computer game, and sometimes he seems dead. The love interest, Margaret, is similar, although she seems at least to have one well-defined feature - her coolness towards Edward. Since this book, although not written in the first person, is written from Edward's point of view, this sadly means we never get to know Margaret either.

Similarly, the computer game Edward becomes obsessed with, MOMUS, is very badly defined. At times it seems like Age of Empires, at times like Doom, at times like something never before seen on this planet. How can we identify with a man playing the game if we don't know what he is playing?

Smaller things are also to be pointed out - the chapter breakdown is difficult to understand - sometimes there are line breaks that skip two weeks, while chapter breaks that seem to have been inserted to display a vague cliffhanger, which are never remotely interesting. The book is also, in the typical American way, slightly insulting to Brits (taking one example, describing Bangor as being in England), despite the fact that quite a few minor characters seem to be British.

In all, very disappointing. This book is not, as described on the cover, "compulsively readable", "mesmerizing from strart to finish", "fabulously entertaining" and is certainly not "a genuine treat." Avoid if at all possible.