Review: ‘More of Me’ by Kathryn Evans

I received a copy of More of Me by Kathryn Evans from Indigo to review and share. It sounded like a very interesting coming-of-age/sci-fi crossover that I could get behind. It was released last year in the UK, but only came out in North America on June 13, so it’s still new to me!

Synopsis: Teva is the sixteen version of herself, having emerged like a butterfly from the cocoon of her former self, Fifteen. But don’t worry… Fifteen is still around, along with 10 other previous versions of her. The old versions of Teva are forced to stay hidden in their rickety old house, while the latest version continues to live their life as if nothing weird is going on. But #16 isn’t planning to let her life be taken over at the end of her year… she’s going to figure out how to save her life, and maybe save the lives of all the Tevas that came before her.

“I have grown in strength inside her. Filled her cells with mine until we must split apart. It’s not my choice – that’s how it’s always been for us.”

Finding something to compare this book to is hard, but I couldn’t help but see similarities between it and Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon. On the very surface, both books have a main character with a rare and weird disease and a very overprotective mother. Beyond that, you have a girl yearning to be defined by something more than her disease, the mystery of how all this happened in the first place, and a journey of self-discovery. While More of Me is obviously much more fantastical in nature than Yoon’s book, it was still very grounded in reality with all the highschool drama that most girls would face. Teva still has to put up with flaky friends, boyfriend squabbles, and the general awfulness that comes with being a teenage girl in this society.

Unfortunately, the most interesting part of the book (ie. the fact that this girl literally grows a new version of herself every year) was often lost in a lot of that stereotypical highschool drama. The science behind her condition wasn’t explored much, leaving me feeling like a) the author didn’t do more research, or b) the author thought that she didn’t need to put real science in a YA novel. I often found myself skimming through the book looking for words that would indicate that we had finally returned to the parts involving all the Tevas because they are what make this book unique and different from all the other contemporary YA stories out there.

This book would be good for teens who are interested in trying the sci-fi genre, but still want their complicated teen love story and friendship drama. I would honestly be interested to find out how Teva’s life progresses after the end of this book, as there are many questions left unanswered. There is much more that could be done with this concept.

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