hitting 7 out of 17

Here's my reading list as it currently stands:

The 2009 Reading List
1. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
2. The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik
3. Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin --I boycotted this one.
4. A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern
5. If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern
6. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
7. Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done by David Allen
8. The Amber Room by Steve Berry
9. Doctors by Erich Segal
10. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
11. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
12. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding
13. Prizes by Erich Segal
14. Live a Little by Kim Green
15. Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
16. Raising the Peaceable Kingdom by Jeffrey Maoussaieff Mason
17. Baby Proof by Emily Giffin

The latest book I've crossed off the list is The Amber Room by Steve Berry. When Dan Brown came out with The Da Vinci Code (which I also enjoyed), so many other authors began to write with a similar theme. But Steve Berry was different. He may have come around the same time everyone was going crazy over the Jesus-and-Mary Magdalene love angle, but he chose to focus his attention on other historical mysteries: the third secret of Fatima, the story behind the Romanovs and Princess Anastacia, and here, the amber room.

It took me a while to finish this book, which is probably a sign that it didn't have me hooked from the beginning. For one, it doesn't explain the conflict straight away. I had the sense that the novel assumed I had some knowledge of Germans and Soviets, why they fought in World War 2, and what happened between them post-war. I have no idea why Czechoslovakia split up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but that's what I learned from the book-- apparently they had some rift. I think that to have a real appreciation of the book, you have to first understand why this Amber Room is so important to them. Yes, I can imagine that an entire room filled with panels of amber, making it seem like it's glittering in gold, could be very precious, but there was a more cultural and historical reason why they were all after it, and I couldn't quite grasp what it was. The explanations came somewhere in the middle, but by then I'd already been so lost. You know when you're walking through the forest, you know you're lost but you think, "Well, I'll just keep walking then, even if I don't know where I'm going," and then someone throws you a map, but you can't even begin to make sense of it because you don't know where you are in the first place? That's how I felt.

There also wasn't enough character development for the protagonists. The summary in the back cover says "a divorced couple race through Europe with trained killers swiftly behind". Well, I know more about the trained killers than I do about the couple. It wasn't a really bad book, but maybe I'm just cutting Steve Berry some slack because this was his debut novel, after all. So, I finally crossed this off my list with the conclusion that it was just a so-so read.

Next on my list is Doctors by Erich Segal. I had read this book years ago, maybe when I was still in grade school, because my older cousins had a copy lying around. All I remember is that it was one of those books I couldn't put down (along with Danielle Steel's Wings, but I don't remember what that was about either), and any book that kept me up till the wee hours of the morning must be something worth re-reading. I may also gain a new appreciation for it now that I'm much older. 

I started reading the preface, and I can't wait to dive into it this Holy Week.

So far, I've been successful in my pact not to add to my Reading List. The only addition was a birthday gift from my boss, and at least it was just one book. I'm making good progress with this list, so yay! :)