Review: What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang

Title: What's Left of Me (The Hybrid Chronicles #1)
Author: Kat Zhang
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release date: September 18th 2012

Rating: 4/5

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I should not exist. But I do.

Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else—two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren’t they settling? Why isn’t one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared gone. Except, she wasn’t . . .

For the past three years, Eva has clung to the remnants of her life. Only Addie knows she’s still there, trapped inside their body. Then one day, they discover there may be a way for Eva to move again. The risks are unimaginable-hybrids are considered a threat to society, so if they are caught, Addie and Eva will be locked away with the others. And yet . . . for a chance to smile, to twirl, to speak, Eva will do anything.

Eva and Addie live in a world where everyone is born with two souls, the dominant and recessive, both can move the body and talk, but it is the dominant soul in control most of the time and usually recessive soul vanishes before the age of 10 years old. Addie was not settled until she was 12 years old or at least that's what everyone thought, because Eva didn´t fade as she must have, as normal people do but continued to live in the body that she shares with Addie, only now she has no control over it, she can only see through their eyes and communicate with Addie. But even in that state no one should know that she still exists because if the government finds out that they are still hybrid, they would be separated from their parents and taken to a medical facility from which no one returns.

In the world Eva and Addie live, the hybrid over 10 years old are prohibited, because in their history hybrids are unstable and they always wanted to dominate the non-hybrid, and they´were the ones that brought the Great world wars, that´s why America is a country created by non-hybrid (or people with only one soul ) and they closed their borders to the rest of the world because in the countries ruled by hybrids are at war and in chaos. So all hybrid are expected to be of violent nature .

By this fact Eva and Addie live in fear of being discovered, so that not even their parents know that Eva still exists. What's left of me is told from the point of Eva, the recessive soul, she´s a 15 years old girl that has no control over her body, but still clinging to her existence, because she´s afraid of disappearing, so she accept this way of living until she learns that there is a possibility that she can regain control of her body. I really liked the relationship between Eva and Addie because they rely heavily on each other and the fact that not been together is unthinkable for both, but as good sisters, they have their differences and discuss a lot. In the course of the story they become friends with Hally and her brother Ryan and the latter will be Eva´s romantic interest. My main question is how Eva and Addie will do with the fact that Eva is falling in love with Ryan but Addie isn´t.

I really liked What's left of me, it´s a good first book of a trilogy, the romance is a little bit slow, there are some scenes of action and the world where Eva lives is explained but I have many doubts about the hybrids. I can´t wait to read Once We Were and know more about the hybrids.

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