Review for What’s Left of Me by Kat Zhang

What’s Left of Me by Kat Zhang
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: 27th September 2012
Genre: YA, Dystopian, Futuristic, Sci-Fi, Romance
Rating: 4/5 stars
Source: Bought



Goodreads Summary: 
"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."

Review 
What’s Left of Me has to be one of my most anticipated books of this year. I love the dystopian genre and this books premise sounded so interesting. What’s Left of Me is set in a futuristic world where everybody is born with two souls. After a certain amount of time one soul is supposed to become dominant and claim the body as its own whilst the recessive soul fades away into nothing. This book is about Eva a recessive soul who although has no control over her body has never completely faded away and so haunts her twin soul Addie. They are what’s known as a hybrid and because they are feared and hated by the government Addie has to keep Eva’s presence a secret.

What I didn’t expect from this book is for the story to be told from Eva, the recessive souls, perspective. With their body being shared I fully expected a dual narrative between Addie and Eva and whilst reading from Eva’s point of view didn’t do much for me liking and understanding Addie’s character it really got me into Eva’s mind set and got me thinking about how horrible it would be to have no control over your body, to no longer exist to the people you love, to essentially haunt what used to be your life. I felt so sorry for Eva and was rooting for her to get equal rights over her own body along with Addie.

Although Eva loves Addie and never holds a grudge against her for being the dominant soul, Addie did get on my nerves at times throughout the book. Even though I knew she couldn’t help how things were she was at times a bit selfish and I couldn’t help resent her as she held Eva back.

The world that the girls inhabit is a scary one indeed and I felt the girls’ fear and desperate need to stay together in a world where the government surgically want to remove and kill one of them. The only thing that made this book less than perfect for me was that I would have liked to have learned a bit more regarding the government and why exactly they feared the hybrids. I didn’t really understand why it was so important for people to only have one soul and I hope that plus what’s going on outside of America is touched upon more in the next book in the series.

Overall What’s Left of Me was a fascinating read that had me completely absorbed. I loved the characters, I loved the love story, and I loved the unique plot. But most of all I loved how this book totally got me inside Eva’s head and made me think about what life is like for her. What’s Left of Me is a gripping futuristic read about what it means to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to change you.