Forget about efficiency for the moment and focus on discovering the underlying recursive problem.

LOTS of people struggle with dynamic programming. But in my experience, 90% of the difficulty with dynamic programming is actually discomfort with recursion, which is why I talk about recursive backtracking first.

Try reading Chapter 2. My goal in that chapter is to show the process of deriving recursive solutions---how to think about the problem, and what questions to ask---rather than just presenting the solution as a fait accompli.

I do have to assume that you believe in the Recursion Fairy, though. That's probably the hardest step. Computer scientists are TERRIBLE at delegating.