Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I went to Princeton, and the only aspects of this book that I found worthwhile were its oft-evocative descriptions of my alma mater. (Though, for the record, I'd like to state that it's not very accurate in its depiction of the undergraduate experience.) I can't imagine what anyone without fond memories of the university would see in this poorly-written and poorly-plotted novel. My main complaint, I think, is with the self-consciousness and artificiality of the prose. The book reads as if its authors are trying to show off their creativity and intellectual prowess. Unfortunately, the resulting text contains awkwardly-structured sentences and laughable similes (a book "spread open on the floor with its spine broken, like a butterfly somebody stepped on"; "a good graduate program can smell indecision like a dog can smell fear"). The writing is such that you can't get lost in the story, for you always feel the authors' presence. It doesn't help that the characters are flat and not even remotely believable, and that it is utterly lacking in suspense--odd, that, in a novel billed as a thriller. Both problems are largely a result of the structure of the book, which relies on frequent flashbacks to develop the psychology of the characters and explain the strangely powerful hold a Renaissance-era manuscript, the Hypnerotomachia, has over them. The technique of revealing details about the personalities of characters through flashbacks can be a very useful one, but here it falls flat, simply because nothing important is ever revealed. Still, I might have forgiven _The Rule of Four_'s vapid prose, poor pacing, and undeveloped characters if there had been a compelling case made for the seemingly-supernatural significance of the Hypnerotomachia. Alas, nothing ever comes of it. It isn't often that I regret having read a book, but this one really was a waste of time.