Review: Origin

Origin by Dan Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Origin scores an exuberant 5 star rating from me, 1 of only 3 books in my collection of 80 to do so. If you're familiar with the Langdon series, it's a no surprise hook-line and sinker! Within the opening pages you're hooked and accepting the drop in productivity for a few days. The storyline and well placed care packages of new information along the way kept me speculating in-between readings, in that mystifying deep sense that Brown has definitely mastered now. As with others in the series, the book is a fiction written around facts from a variety of subjects like Science, Technology, Religion, Art and Philosophy. I found myself on Google "is that true!?" quite a few times.

Without spoilers, we find Robert Langdon inadvertently centered in another catastrophic mystery/disaster. A scientific discovery so huge, so earth shattering that it guarantees to not only change the world, but completely shatter the pillars of which its history both physically and philosophically have been built. Edmond Kirsch, renowned scientist/genius and outspoken Atheist claims, "I have indisputable evidence, life can and did begin without 'God'" But the release of this discovery falls on the shoulders of Robert Langdon, who knows only how big a discovery it is, but not WHAT it is.

From the beginning, I questioned whether even Dan Brown could deliver an ending adequate to match the enormity of the "discovery" he builds up. Although from the early chapters, the story does well to validate it's importance without giving it away. And despite the common dissatisfying deflation at the end of a thriller, Brown holds true to his intellectual "promise" to us the reader that he has indeed concocted a scientific discovery that is both earth shattering and shockingly believable.
Origin is an absolute must read on all accounts


To those of any faith skeptical of reading a book who's plot intends to disprove God. Fear not, as the inner glimmer of faith both within the story and Robert Langdon continues to shine.

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