What's Left Of Me: A Hybrid Novel [Hardcover]

~A big thanks to Edelweiss and HarperCollins for this ARC!~

When I requested this on Edelweiss, I thought I'd make a big mistake. I already had a have-but-need-to-read list of 20 books. At least 7 of those were books I had to review. Some of them I'd had from NetGalley since the previous month and needed to be read YESTERDAY. But I thought "...what the heck?" Then it came through and I thought, "What have I done, I can't read this fast enough to get the review done in time!"

I finished this in one afternoon. I couldn't have put it down even when my mother asked me to.

The premise is just as interesting as it sounds. I drank up every little detail about it, and there was lots of that. In places it was a little infodump-ish, but I didn't mind. Zhang had so many layers built into this world that I never even dreamed of. After all, who would think to go PAST a world where two souls start out in every body? That's got enough going for it as it is. But Zhang also added a global element to this book. The setting is in a dystopian United States, where the Americas are supposedly cut off from the rest of the world because hybrids are burning up every other continent with their wars. This aspect was only mentioned briefly, but it opens up the other books in this series for literally a world of possibilities that are very intriguing.

The characters of Eva and Addie were also very well done. It was always easy to tell who was talking and thinking, because they did have a slightly different way of talking and acting. I also loved how yet another level of the plot was Eva and Addie's constant battle and pact with each other. After all, they are two parts of the same whole, yet they are two different people. It would have been so easy to make Addie seem evil for not wanting Eva to take control, but Zhang gives you just enough of each girl so that you are emotionally invested in both their sides of the argument and there is no black and white.

The plot never stopped moving. Eva and Addie had to roll with so many punches that just kept coming and coming and coming. I wasn't particularly shocked by any of them, but Zhang's impeccable writing kept my heart rate up the whole time. Even in moment's where it seems like the plot is slowing down, your nerves aren't because you just KNOW something is RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER.

Somehow, this plot is also devoid of some of my "favorite" clichés. Insta-love? Addie and Eva never had the freaking time, they were too busy trying to survive. Love triangles? I thought it would be way too easy to fall into this, what with two people inhabiting a bunch of bodies and all, but Zhang didn't lower herself to that, either. Instead, the small fraction of romance in this book was done spectacularly well, yet somehow made me feel so sad for both Addie and Eva at the same time. (No, I won't tell you which one is in love. Read it and find out!)

Basically, this book is everything I want a book to be, which makes it really hard to write a review about it. It had plenty of action, a fantastic premise, impeccable writing and great characters. It lacked any YA love clichés and wasn't romance focused, though it did include romance that I actually enjoyed. I have nothing left to say besides READ THIS BOOK ASAP!

Several of my author friends were gushing about this book, and I just knew I had to move it up on my to read list. Boy, am I glad I did.

What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang is about Hybrids-- specifically Eva and Addie. There is typically a dominant and recessive soul in each body and Eva is the recessive soul. She is supposed to disappear by their 5th birthday, but she hangs on, determined to live. But because of this, they are different from the rest of the population, and hide their secret from even their loved ones. Then they meet Hally, someone just like them-- and their world changes forever.

I can't even imagine the complexity of writing this book. To clarify what I mean is-- you have two souls inhabiting one body. There are references to Addie saying something, but then when she does something, it is talked about in the collective plural "we." The connotation was always clear and I never saw a misstep, but what a difficult way to write-- very impressive. Eva is a terrific character, as is Addie, and Zhang does a wonderful job of keeping a balance between the two. The pace of the novel is lightning quick, and I kept turning the pages faster and faster to see what would happen. I loved how three dimensional all of the characters were-- and what a feat to keep each half so distinct and separate.

I am curious about the world building because it is not clear what happened before-- why there are Hybrids, etc. But the ending of this first entry in what is likely to be a trilogy hints there is much more up Zhang's sleeve.

A terrific first book for Zhang-- and I'm eager to pick up the next book in this series!

(I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to HarperCollins publishers, and Edelweiss.)
15-year-old Addie lives in a world where every baby is born with two souls; two different consciousness' living in the same body and mind. Between the ages of 5 and 10, every child loses their second soul, in a process known as `settling'. The dominant soul fully takes control of the body, and the recessive soul simply fades away.

Addie is unusual in that she didn't settle until she was 12. A fact that nearly cost her her life, but what nobody knows is that while Addie has full control of her body, her sister Eva still lives on within her mind. Addie/Eva are what is known as a hybrid, and in the USA this is basically illegal, if they are caught they will be experimented on or killed, so Addie says nothing, and Eva remains trapped in her own body.

When a girl at school Hally reveals herself to Addie as a hybrid too and tries to get Addie to admit that Eva never disappeared, Addie wonders if it is a trick, but Eva is desperate to find out if she could get her control back and no longer have to live imprisoned in her body.

Unfortunately though, Hally manages to get herself sent to an institution for hybrids, and tells the people there Addie's secret, meaning that Addie is taken too, and must now find a way out, before the people there try to take Eva away from her forever.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the relationship between Addie and Eva, and felt sorry for poor Eva being totally unable to exert control over her own body. Eva was such a strong character, stronger even than Addie who was supposedly the `dominant' soul. She hung on in there, desperate to hang onto life, not wanting to fade away, always wanting to experience more, even when everybody told her that she should be gone already.
I felt sorry for Eva in the way that she was treated, even by Addie, who at one point blames their hybrid status on Eva, because if Eva had just let herself fade away like she should have, Addie would be normal.
I also felt sorry for the other children at the institute who were being experimented on. It was so terrible how their other halves were being ripped away from them, and how they were told that they were sick and wrong because they were hybrids.

I really don't understand how people could possibly live with this kind of torture! Having a child who has two separate personalities inside, naming them different names, and then having to live with the knowledge that at some point one of them will basically cease to exist! I also find it very difficult to imagine living with someone else in your head, and having to share a body, but also, if you had had someone else in your head since birth, how would it be to have them disappear and be no longer there! The grief that the children felt about the loss of their twin was just so poignant, and sad.

I did find it quite strange initially that the story was told from Eva's point of view, but this wasn't an issue once I got into the story, and it was interesting to see things from Eva's point of view. I did find it a bit confusing at times though when Eva referred to things as `ours' - our arm, our sock etc. I also cringed every time Addie accidentally said `us' instead of I; convinced that they were going to give themselves away!

The whole idea of two souls in one body, and the way one was dominant did massively remind me of `The Host' by Stephenie Meyer, even though the story itself wasn't similar. The way that the two different people communicated and had different ideas and desires, was very similar though - not that this was a bad thing.

The story was well paced, and the finale was so tense! My heart was racing, my hands were shaking, and I was silently begging `They've got to make it, they've got to make it!'
There was a little touch of romance, but nothing too much, I'm guessing that this might be explored more in future books.

Overall; I really enjoyed this book and can't wait to read the next books in the series! If you love dystopian YA, you'll love this!
8.75 out of 10.