The Rule of Four. By Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason.

As the book was co-written by two authors, i thought i can detect two writing styles. There are the fast-paced, "more action" paragraphs and the slow, more descriptive and sentimental lines. Or is it that i've imagined it? Ha-ha.

i was actually trudging through the book after page 10. The only thing that drives me forward is the mystery surrounded by the the book mentioned in the novel. The five-hundred-year-old Hypnerotomachia; a book which name i don't even know how to pronounce. i guess that sort of add on to the general mysterious air about the old relic.

This novel is said to be comparable to Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. However, i disagree. When the puzzles finally fall into the right places, it didn't really have the same effet on me as what Da Vinci Code did to me. There was no tingling sensation on the arms as goosebumps rose when all was revealed, nor heart-beating-faster as you turn eagerly to the next page.

Perhaps it is unfair to compare both books. The Rule of Four offered more than just a mystery-solved type of story. There were more character development. The main characters were described in-depth. In fact, i think even the title of the book alludes to the four main character of the books. Even though only two of them worked on unravelling the mystery of the book, the lives of the four of them intertwined.

There were four of them. The Rule of Four.

The early setting of the book is in Princeton, where the four of them are undergraduates.

The are the four of us. The Apple Four, (as i've learned that's what people call us).

In the book, there's this passage, as Tom described how he foresee the four of them would grow apart.
Time pushes at our backs like a centrifuge, forcing us outward and away, until it nudges us into oblivion. It will happen to the four of us, inseparable as we seem.

i do not know what will happen to the four of us in the future, but i intend to make the best out of it now. There is nothing more precious than the present. "That's why it is called a 'gift'.

Four different people, four different personalities. It's defying natural laws that four of us should click so well. i would have think that there is divine intervention that our temperaments complement each other. =P

Long live the sisterhood! To the three special girls who have always pulled me out of sh*tty situations, i raise my goblet to you. The Rule of Four reminds me of the four of us.