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What's Left of Me

What's Left of Me 1

by Kat Zhang
Paperback
Publication Date: 27/09/2012
4/5 Rating 1 Review

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HOW I LIVE NOW meets HIS DARK MATERIALS in this stunningly written and intensely moving debut, the first book in the Hybrid trilogy.


Imagine that you have two minds, sharing one body. You and your other self are closer than twins, better than friends. You have known each other forever.


Then imagine that people like you are hated and feared. That the government want to hunt you down and tear out your second soul, separating you from the person you love most in the world.


Now meet Eva and Addie.


They don't have to imagine.
ISBN:
9780007476817
9780007476817
Category:
Science fiction (Children's / Teenage)
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
27-09-2012
Language:
English
Publisher:
HarperCollins Publishers
Country of origin:
United Kingdom
Pages:
576
Dimensions (mm):
198x129x25mm
Weight:
0.28kg
Kat Zhang

Kat Zhang loves traveling to places both real and fictional - the former have better souvenirs, but the latter allow for dragons, so it's a tough pick. A graduate of Vanderbilt University, she now spends her free time scribbling poetry, taking photographs, and climbing atop things she shouldn't.

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What's Left of Me is set in a world where children are born with two souls. As the child grows up one soul becomes dominant and the other recessive. Eventually in the childs life the recessive soul will fade away leaving only the dominant soul. However some children don't settle, and what happens then? At 15 Addie and Eva are faced with that problem.In a world where being a Hybrid is considered dangerous and a threat, Addie and Eva have to keep the fact that they have not yet settled a secret. But, as obstacles get in their way, can they?

What's Left of Me was great and i did love it, but i just can't bring myself to give it five stars. I would love to rate it so high because the pace was crisp; the plot is brilliant and original beyond belief, and the concept that the story is told from the recessive soul, Eva, was a great twist on the common narrator. Everything was refreshing, fun, and there was never a dull or boring moment when reading Whats Left of Me, but it just missed something.

In Whats Left of Me, we're told straight away that hybrids are unstable and dangerous, and if you have suspicions that someone might be a hybrid, report them immediately. However during the book we arent told why hybrids are so dangerous, and all the hybrids we are introduced to seem harmless enough. So whenever they are spoken about like that all i could think was Why? It could be possible that they aren't any more dangerous than a normal person and they are just thought of this way because they are an anomaly in their normal society, and that's why there never was an explanation? Again, I'm not too sure, but I hope everything is cleared up in book two. As well as that little world-building flaw, there was a flaw in the writing for me that, while little at first, grew to be an annoyance the more I read the book.

Zhangs prose is beautiful, and, like the plot, the writing is crisp and it makes for fast reading, but, unfortunately Zhang uses an overwhelming amount of repetition when writing. At first, this was something I was able to look over easily, but, like I said, as I read more and more, and the use of repetition became more and more frequent, I became annoyed, but not overly so that I was unable to enjoy the book. And lastly in the things that make me conflicted on whether I should be giving Whats Left of Me four or five stars was that the ending felt too anticlimactic given all the buildup for it throughout the novel. It just didn't have the wow factor i was looking for (and expecting)

Now onto less ranty things about Whats Left of Mes rare flaws, and much more praising on everything else thats in Whats Left of Me, because everything else was amazing.

Evas voice and experiences (or lack of) were heartbreaking, as was reading about her longing to talk, to move her fingers evenall of the things we normally take for grantedbut she was physically unable to do. And, although for most of the book

she couldn't even move her fingers, she was still stronger than half of the heroines in YA literature, and thats saying something.

Another thing to absolutely love about Whats Left of Me is that all of the characters are flawed and believable, as are all of their relationships, especially the sisterly relationship between Eva and Addie, which was portrayed expertly. And, while there is some romance in Whats Left of Me, it takes up a very minor part in the actual story, and you might even forget there was a romance to begin with (like me).

Overall, despite minor issues i had while reading i loved the book and will happily recommend it to all my friends and also to anyone looking for an original and refreshing new YA novel.

Contains Spoilers No
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