The Many Lives of Ruby Iyer by Laxmi Hariharan is a YA Thriller set in Bombay.
I want to start by saying that I wish I had Mrs. Hariharan's grammar. She has perfect punctuation. Secondly, this is the first Indie book I've read where the author does the inner thoughts of the protagonist in a way which is not distracting. The quick, italicized thoughts actually add to the story instead of distracting from its natural flow. I know this sounds funny, but it actually makes a big difference in the reader's experience.
Ruby Iyer, our protagonist, is a strong willed, independent young woman living in Bombay with her best friend, Pankaj Verma (Panky). The action starts when there is an accident at the railway. Escaping death, but not the life-threatening shock of touching the live wires fueling the train, Ruby ends up in the hospital wondering how she survived the ten thousand volts running through her body. Something has happened to Ruby; either the shock changed her, or it awakened something already inside. The world also seems to have turned upside down.
Soon after the accident Panky is kidnapped. Ruby teams up with a young cop named Vikram Roy to find out what happened to Panky. It turns out that Bombay is under assault by a teen army bent on taking over the world. The head of this army is a Dr. Kamini Braganza. The "kiddie army", as Ruby likes to call it, has Panky. Ruby and Vikram rampage through the city, saving strangers, running for their lives, and pretty much just kicking butt everywhere they go, ending in a kind of battle royal.
Ruby is a wild character. I don't know if Mrs. Hariharan was trying too hard to make her an action hero, if she was trying to accentuate a teen's violent mood swings, or what, but Ruby is borderline psychotic. She has a violent temper, and cuts herself, among other things. The situations are a bit extreme, though, so perhaps it's simply reactionary to a world gone mad, but she seems to be pre-made that way.
I've never been to Bombay, nor India for that matter, but Mrs. Hariharan has a great way of setting the scene without turning into Stephen King (10 pages to tell you it was raining, uhhg). Even with the fast pace of the book, the reader is always in the scene. It's quite a remarkable talent.
There is a lot of language throughout. I know we're all about pushing boundaries in today's society, but I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you're writing for kids, write for kids. Teenagers are kids. YA should be written for young adults. PG-13 movies don't have multiple "F" words, and neither should YA novels. I know teenagers want to be adult-like, and I know they probably curse more than most adults, but, call me crazy, I think authors should take a little more responsibility when writing for kids. On the plus side, and unlike most of the supposed "YA" I've been receiving lately, there's no unnecessary teenage sex! Yay! Just a lot of violence and language.
I didn't connect with Ruby very well, but the story and the descriptive language made up for the disconnect with the protagonist. The language was out of place for YA, in my opinion, and it was fairly violent, so, over all, I'd have to give the story
Mrs. Hariharan also wanted me to post this link for an I-phone 6 give away
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