The Ruby Iyer Diaries by Laxmi Hariharan

Synopsis:

Never seen before private diary entries they don’t want you to know about. Peek into the mind of the making of a maverick, a window to the soul of an angry, young girl, who will come of age in a city on the verge of total annihilation.

No one ever believed in Ruby, little did they know she'd save millions of lives from annihilation.

Ignored by her mother, a 16-year-old runaway, struggling to survive the crowded streets of Bombay and the secrets she won't admit even to herself.

These short vignettes from Ruby's diaries, tell you a little more about her origins. Her story, what makes her the angry young girl she grows up to be. It’s all inside the pages of The Ruby Iyer Diaries. 

Rating: 3.5/5

Review: 

*I received a copy of this novel via the author in exchange for an honest review*

I actually just finished reading this novella, so I'm going to write my review while it's still fresh on my mind. 

Pretty much what we have here are random, fast paced diary entries of the protagonist of "The Many Lives of Ruby Iyer." It's a fast read, mainly meant to characterize Ruby. There isn't really a plot, considering that these are just random diary entries. From the fragments that we get to read, you can sort of begin to piece together the type of person that Ruby is. I must say that the author did a good job of characterizing Ruby in what we see of her. She's an angry, somewhat selfish, and majorly determined girl. Getting to see her in a variety of situations throughout her adolescence is definitely entertaining.

My problem with the novel was that it didn't exactly read like a diary. It was written in present tense, which definitely didn't suggest that these were written by a young girl at the end of each day. Also, there are occasional references of future events, which would not be known at the time of writing the entry. Also, for the edition that I read to be the finished version available for download on Amazon, there were some issues. I found everything from grammatical issues to outright inconsistencies (notably in one of the 14-year-old chapters, in which she references herself as 13.) These errors kept me from fully enjoying the novel. 

While I'm not entirely sold on the full novel (I don't even exactly know what it'll be about!) I think I'll give it a try. The other novella in this series seems quite interesting, so I know that I'll give it a try. To be honest, I'd recommend this novella to people who have already read The Many Lives of Ruby Iyer, as it might provide more context into Ruby's past.