What a great adventure! I love Emma's love of puzzles and how she realizes she has a super power! I have already recommended this one to several people!

Thank you Alexandra Ott, W. W. Norton & Company and NetGalley for a copy of *The Wish Ring Cipher* in exchange for my honest review 📝📚

Publication date: February 03, 2026 🗓

My tween and I really enjoyed this book. It follows Emma as she learns to navigate her new normal after an autism diagnosis. After struggling at first, she finds a group of friends (the Codebreakers) at her new school and together they work together to solve the cipher mystery📝📚. Emma's character is so real and her story is heartfelt and inspiring. The mystery is done in a clever way and layered to make it really interesting to follow along. The different codes and ciphers are described along the way and presented in an engaging way that we really enjoyed. We are looking forward to more Codebreakers books!📚

I loved Alexandra Ott’s The Wish Ring Cipher (Codebreakers #1). It follows Emma, a newly diagnosed autistic girl, as she navigates a new school and the puzzles that unfold when popular classmate Nate draws her into the Codebreakers group.

Emma is intelligent, thoughtful, caring, and her love of codebreaking helps her reach out and connect to others which is one of my favourite aspects of the story. I believe readers will find her voice feels very relatable and genuine.

I think the puzzle elements are clear and well sequenced, making them feel very understandable even if the reader has never tackled a cipher before. I loved learning about the many different codes and ciphers, which the novel described and presented in an engaging, detailed, and vivid way throughout.

I read through the story quickly, feeling both Emma’s anxiety during awkward social moments and happiness as she finds her place among friends. I do feel that some of the friends could have had a little extra personal quirks or details shared that would have made them feel more relatable and authentic, but I still enjoyed their group a lot.

The entire novel is very well written and flows nicely. The plot unravels in multiple layers, packed with engaging mysteries and unanticipated aspects that had me always wanting to know what was going to happen next.
The ending comes a little suddenly, but it’s satisfying and leaves room for further adventures.

Overall, this is a heartfelt and intelligent novel for middle grade fans of mysteries, friendships, magic, and codebreaking. I can’t wait for the next one in this series!
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Alexandra Ott does a fantastic job in writing fantasy book, This was a strong start to the Codebreakers series and left me wanting to read more in this series. I really enjoyed the way the characters and world were presented and developed. It was everything that I wanted in a opening chapter and was glad it was everything that I was looking for and am excited for more in this world.