As part of my to-do list, I want to read (on average) one book per month for the next 1001 days (starting in October 2009 and finishing in July 2012), which is 33 books. The reason I added this in to my to-do list was because I absolutely love reading, getting stuck into a good book and not being able to put it down is one of my favourite hobbies, but I found that I’ve been getting so caught up in everything else lately (house stuff, blogging, designing, work etc) that I hadn’t read a book for a long time, maybe even 6 months!

So starting from October, this is a list of the books I’ve read or am reading (novels, no picture books or kids books allowed!) with a brief critique.

1. Mama Mia by Mia Freedman – An account of Mia’s entry into the magazine world, having babies (and struggling to), struggling with jobs and finding a happy medium between work and home life.
Verdict: I really enjoyed parts of this book. Where Mia talks about being pregnant, having her babies, and the magazine industry, I felt she was being open and honest, and gave interesting insights. There were however parts of the book that really irked me. #1 would be the “teasers”. Every book has them, where they give you a tidbit of something at the end of a chapter to make you keep going in to the next. Mia’s teasers did this, but then the punchline wouldn’t come for 3 more chapters! I think I skim-read some chapters because of this, to get to the juicy part, and that’s never a good thing. The second thing I was disappointed about was Mia’s lack of depth when it came to some parts of her life. She goes into great detail about her grief over having a miscarriage, and subsequent difficulty to fall pregnant again. But then glazes over her therapy (years later) and temporary breakup with her partner. Now I understand some things you want to keep private, but why bring it up in the first place? 6/10

2. False Impression by Jeffrey Archer – I don’t even know how to write the blurb for this one, it’s too complicated.
Verdict: This book was a real page turner, but after you’ve finished the last page you think: Is that it? Really? Firstly, it much was too obvious. Every “twist” I guessed within the first few chapters, the clues were too obvious. Secondly, the September 11 attacks used as a side story was almost sickening. As in, I think the Author has used them to sell the book. They have to impact what-so-ever on the story line, the characters responses to the tragedy are incredibly shallow (eg, the main character was in one of the towers, escapes, and an hour later is chatting with a friend over coffee about helping some rich old woman in England get a painting back. Meanwhile several of their colleagues have perished…). Later in the book the heroine get’s stabbed in the leg, but doesn’t go to hospital or a doctor. Instead the next day she jovially tells her male friend “why she was limping”. The senior FBI agent investigating the whole saga has only one role: to act as a narrator and watch the story unfold (never actually doing anything) and to fall for the herione. Ugh, I could go on and on, I was quite disappointed. 4/10