A sneak peek at another HarperTeen author, debuting this fall!

I've been anxious to get my hands on WHAT'S LEFT OF ME since THRONE OF GLASS author Sarah J. Maas blogged about her friend Kat Zhang's publication deal last year.  I was so excited when HarperCollins sent me a review copy, and while I have to sit on the full review until closer to release, I wanted to whet your appetite now.

Zhang's world reminds me in the best possible way of Phillip Pullman's DARK MATERIALS Trilogy in that the dæmons we're introduced to and the way they're severed reminds me very much of the way recessive souls can be removed in WHAT'S LEFT OF ME.  HIS DARK MATERIALS was read repeatedly growing up and is still an all-time favorite of mine.

In Zhang's world, every person is born with two twin souls that inhabit one body.  The two take turns controlling the body, and over time, one soul becomes dominant and takes over while the other becomes recessive and fades away.  With Addie and Eva, however, the recessive Eva never completely fades away.  The girls' body never settles the way it should, and Addie isn't deemed alone in her body until she's ten, which is on the cusp-line of being "too long."  If a body never settles, the government looks that person up.  Eva has no control over her and Addie's body, but can still think and have conversations with Addie, a fact that the girls want to hide at all costs.

I loved the fact that Eva is the narrator as the recessive soul, rather than seeing everything through Addie's eyes.  It creates so many more layers because Eva struggles more.  I also liked the way it's always "we" and "us" and "our" when narrating instead of "me" and "I" and "mine," which takes some getting used to, but makes complete sense.  I wouldn't have it any other way!

WHAT'S LEFT OF ME doesn't have a cliffhanger and wraps in a way that could make it a one-off, but has enough loose threads that make a sequel imminent--and I, for one, will be glad to return to this world!  

Armchair BEA is the site to be at this week if you aren't able to get into NYC for BEA!


Day II is for The Best Books of 2012 (So Far!)


Don't forget to check out my interview answers from yesterday or enter today's Triple Giveaway if you haven't done so already! 

A lot of sequels and companion novels have come out recently, especially second books.


Reviewing these can be hard because they're SO full of spoilers.  I've decided to hold off a few months before reviewing any sequel in order to give people time to read the book and form an opinion first!


But my favorites would HAVE to be...




Three of those titles are Second Books.  Often times, second books aren't the best book in the series, and a lot of the time, if you adore the first book, you may not like the second one as much.  I think WAKING STORMS and INSURGENT are both better than the first book in their respective series.


I did a You're Gonna Love Me post on WAKING STORMS for anyone who can't wait another month to read this amazing sequel!  I'll do a full review during Splash into Summer!  Sarah Porter has hands-down written my favorite mermaid series to-date.  


I wouldn't have said this last year, but after re-reading DIVERGENT and reading INSURGENT, I'm currently liking this series better than THE HUNGER GAMES and think it's the best in the genre.  We'll see what I think next year after the final book comes out!  (And everyone who loves Lauren Oliver's DELIRIUM trilogy should definitely be checking this one out!)


While I didn't love HALLOWED as much as I did UNEARTHLY (There's just something about falling in love for the first time!  I think that's also why I enjoyed ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS more than LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR!), I still thought it was a great sequel.  I had three theories going into it (and two of them were complete surprises to most people, but I also didn't have the theories until re-reading UNEARTHLY, so there is that!), and can't wait to see if my third theory comes true in the final book or not!


And BITTERBLUE.... Ahh, the wait for BITTERBLUE has been torture!  While the book wasn't what I'd expected it to be, it was still a tremendous offering that will win Kristin Cashore even more acclaim.  It's brilliantly layered and much darker than Cashore's previous novels.  I love that each of her novels so far deals with a different type of person living in the same world, from Gracelings to monsters to ordinary people.

INCARNATE by Jodi Meadows is my favorite book of 2012 so far.  

I technically read it in 2011 as an ARC, but I'll be re-reading it later this year as the release date of ASUNDER grows closer, so it still counts, especially since the book officially came out this year and all that jazzy stuff.

I managed to forget about reviewing this book after my computer crashed in January, so I'll rectify that sometime this month!

I think the reason I love INCARNATE so much is because of Jodi Meadows' way with words.  Some passages are so beautiful, and they make my writer's heart weep because I can't write like that.  I actually mentioned this to Jodi on Twitter earlier and she shared a link where she wrote a feature about writing like other authors recently!