I am profoundly glad that I didn’t get this in hardcover. And that I bought it for $4 at Sam’s Club.

Holy shit what a weird mash of things going on here. For one, the authors truly wished to showcase their knowledge of Princeton and it’s inner workings. They needed to go out of their way to show us they were on the inside of some pretty intimate workings of the school and its traditions. Yawn.

And then there was the whole character of Paul and Tom. I highly doubt that Tom if given a choice between spending time with a girl, and spending time with a guy and a musty old book, would actually choose the latter. College boys are not this dedicated to scholarship. Especially on some dry tome that basically drove Tom’s father to obsession and death before even coming close to the meaning of it all. And Paul is worse; he doesn’t even have a token girlfriend to distract him from his thesis. A thesis as an undergrad? How weird. But he too is a driven scholar who has no social life and thinks he can crack the mystery that smarter men have failed to crack.

Which brings me to the 3rd thing; why are these boys so light years ahead of their predecessors? It makes no sense that people with decades of learning into subjects not even broached by Paul and Tom should fail to unlock the secret of the book. Two kids with barely enough hormones between them to have a wet dream are the ones to unlock the visceral secrets of this ancient text…yeah right.

The idea of a mystery within an otherwise strange but innocuous text is a good one. But using college kids as a way to solve it when many others have gone before is a stretch. And the ending being a map and directions to a centuries old cache of hidden art treasures that would have otherwise been burned by fanatics is a really odd mystery. Compounded by the fact that they cryptically show one boy signaling to the other via equally cryptic messages that he has found said cache and go join him yonder, well that’s just out of the tethers of reality. That and the fact that none of it seems to have decayed despite the lack of hermetic sealing technology.

Bah. ( )

While this book contains some well written sections actually worth quoting, I felt that the characters' reactions to the events in the book were unrealistic. I had a hard time "buying" it. ( )

I listened to this book on audio. It was interesting enough to finish it but it had some really detailed history lessons which were a little long and boring. Not quite the Da Vinci Code but it was fun to think you could unlock 500 year old mysteries from a book for the first time. ( )

When I was in high school and wanted to get rid of some pesty kid, I'd tell him I had to work on my translation of the Hypnerotomachia. When the kid said "What?" I'd reply, "You know, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Brother Benedict is really pushing me to get it done on time." And the kid would let me alone. So I was very happy to see The Rule of Four published, because the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili plays a big role in it. The Rule of Four was published at the same time as The Da Vinci Code, and the two books have similar subject matter. I think The Rule of Four is the better of the two books. I highly recommend it. ( )

Four friends at Princeton get sucked into events fueled by discoveries surrounding a mysterious 500-year-old book. This was good - lots of Renaissance history, and I really liked the descriptions of the friendships and love, Not nearly as fast-paced as Da Vinci Code, but definitely better written and more literary. ( )