We're Doomed

So it turns out that New York Times bestselling hack Dan Brown is writing an abridged version of his 2003 smash, The Da Vinci Code. The idea behind the new edition is supposed to be making it more manageable for the "young adult" reader market. That label's kind of a misnomer. An actual young adult is 18, but "young adult" books are generally marketed towards people in their early teens.

In any event, if I were one of those so targeted by this rewrite, I would be greatly insulted at the idea that the original Code was somehow beyond my capabilities as a reader.  The Da Vinci Code gives no evidence that a great literary mind was involved in its creation, therefore why should one be required in its consumption?

Article author Maddie Crum offers several reasons that Code would probably be a good YA read: "clean prose, break-neck scenes, witty dialogue and creative insights into historical events." This leads me to think that while both she and I bought the same dust jacket, we must have purchased quite different books. Brown's incomplete grasp of church history, inaccurate descriptions of buildings and scenes, info-dump lecture dialogues and clichéd characters make Code an absolute chore to get through.

And we all know what kids feel about chores.

(H/T Acculturated)