After really being sucked in by The Da Vinci Code, I was looking forward to reading Angels and Demons, so it really sucks for me to give this book only 3.5 stars. It just didn't hook me the same way. It was good and fast and exciting - but not quite enough. I understood that this is the precursor to The Da Vinci Code so maybe it's just that Brown's writing improved or something, but I can see how and why The Da Vinci Code made a bigger splash than Angels and Demons. 
 That being said, I still liked this book. It was fast paced - the whole thing happens over the course of about 24 hours - and it had conspiracies and science vs. religion and was the type of story that really interested me. The characters weren't quite deep enough, almost felt like Brown was trying to hard to give them all interesting backstories and just missed the mark. Still, I found it to be an enjoyable read. 
 So 3.5 stars from me.