Review: The Ruby Code by Jessica Khoury

This was a book I had to read, despite never having played any virtual reality games. Because I have been a fan of Jessica and her books since her first story. This new middle grade sounded awesome. The cover is amazing. I'm happy to say that I enjoyed it a whole lot. But I did not love it, so I am giving this three stars.

It was such a good story, though. And I did adore the main boy, Ash. He was awesome. Ruby was too. The writing was mostly great, except for all the italics under every single word that was to be said differently. It drove me a little insane, haha, and took me a little out of the book. But this story was all kinds of great.

I'm not going to write such a long review for this book. As it was kind of short and easy and fast to read. It is told from two point of views. There is Ash, from our world, but in the future. I so liked getting to know what the world was like at this time. All kinds of ruined, in a way. With most people being obsessed with virtual reality and not caring too much about the actual reality. We don't learn too much about this world, but a little was enough. It was exciting. And we do learn a whole lot about thirteen-year-old Ash. He was such a small and gentle boy, truly. A little broken after his father died. And his mom found a new boyfriend, one who did not treat him well. She did not know this. And Ash was too scared to tell her. That broke my heart. He deserved more.

Although Ash did not have the easiest life, he did try his best to be okay. Being positive with his mother, loving his dog. Trying to be normal with his best friend, Hakeem. That was not going well. And Hakeem did get a bit angry with him. I did not blame him. But they were such great friends and I liked that a lot. I so did not like how his mom's boyfriend treated him. And wanted him to have such an awful end, haha. Kind of happy with how it ended, but not as brutal as I would have liked it. He deserved much worse, ha.

Then there was the other main character of this book. Ruby. I love how we got her point of view too. She was different. Not real. Yet not fully fake either. She starts out as a character in a virtual reality game Ash ends up getting from a guy he saves. But not a normal game character at all. And I so liked getting her view of things. It was a little weird but pretty awesome too. I do not play a lot of games like this, but I do play a little. And I liked the gaming parts of this book. Felt that it was written well and was pretty exciting.

I'm not going to say too much about the plot of this story. Only a little bit. Mostly this is a story about Ash and Ruby working together inside this game trying to figure out why she is different from other NPC in it. Why she can think for herself and what it all means. It was a small adventure and I so liked that. I did not fully love this book, sadly, as I was a little bored at times too. It felt a little too tame, somewhat. Even with the real life villains working on damaging the world. But I wanted even more danger and more adventure.

But despite this, I still liked this book a lot. It was exciting and I so enjoyed reading about Ash and Ruby and their growing friendship. They were pretty cute together. The book was a little too short, though. As I would have loved even more of them and even more of this world as well. Oh, there is a white fluffy cat. Like mine. I so adored it, ha. It had only a small part, but still. The Ruby Code was a great gaming book. With stunning friendships. I'm glad that I read it. Wish I had loved it more, but it was still pretty fantastic.

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