Kat Zhang brings readers through the climax without that annoying to-be-continued feel, but still leaves them longing to know what comes in the second book of the series. Two characters speak from a single body without any confusion, which is particularly admirable because the point of view character is Eva, the recessive soul. The relationship between Addie and Eva is complex and original, and there are haunting bits of dialogue between Addie and Eva, with ‘I’, “she” and “we” woven masterfully in. Another Hybrid approaches them with the tantalizing glimpse of a life they didn’t think possible, but the consequences if they are discovered are deadly.Įmotions, actions, and conflict propel richly developed characters through this fast-paced story. Hybrids that don’t settle are destined to a life of institutionalization, so the sister souls pretend that Addie is an ‘I’ instead of a ‘we’ and Eva’s voice is only heard in the mind of the body Addie controls. Addie and Eva start out like everyone else, but though Eva weakens, she never disappears. Sometime in early childhood, the recessive soul fades away to nothing. Zhang brings to life an alternate America where borders are closed, and everyone is born with two souls. It is the first book in the The Hybrid Chronicles.“Addie and I were born into the same body, our soul’s ghostly fingers entwined before we gasped our very first breath.”
This novel is an unsettling and unflinching look at the idea of identity and what it means to be human. The novel is told from the perspective of Eva, who is a helpless spectator inside of their joint body, only able to watch as Addie controls their movements and actions, the soul that should have died long ago. There is a profound bond between these two souls and Zhang plays upon a certain level of push and pull that characterises Eva and Addie’s relationship. There is a certain level of tension between these two souls that share a body, a weakness and vulnerability, yet an uncompromising need and reliance on one another, particularly as they are faced with a world that would see them destroyed. Zhang’s prose is lovely the struggle between Eva and Addie to try to be two distinct individuals whilst being physically the same person is very compelling and also rather sad. “We’d been born with our souls’ fingers interlocked.
The alternative would mean the death of the recessive soul, Eva. This doesn’t happen for Eva and Addie, and faced with the option of the being taken away and forced to ‘settle’, they keep this a secret.
Once the child reaches a certain age, the recessive soul ‘fades out’, leaving the dominant soul as the sole being within the body. In this novel, every child is born with a recessive and dominant soul in their body. A highly evocative debut novel by Kat Zhang, What’s Left of Me is set in a dystopian world, a genre birthed in novels such as Nineteen Eighty-Four.
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