#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEARNAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES * THE WASHINGTON POST NPR * PEOPLE * TIME MAGAZINE VANITY FAIR * GLAMOUR 2021 WOMEN’S PRIZE FINALIST“Bennett’s tone and style recalls James Baldwin and Jacqueline Woodson, but it’s especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s 1970 debut novel, The Bluest Eye.” —Kiley Reid, … Woodson, but it’s especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s 1970 debut novel, The Bluest Eye.” —Kiley Reid, Wall Street Journal
“A story of absolute, universal timelessness …For any era, it’s an accomplished, affecting novel. For this moment, it’s piercing, subtly wending its way toward questions about who we are and who we want to be….” – Entertainment Weekly
From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.
As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.more
very unusual story of color and race
This book was well written but I was disappointed in the ending. I feel as though the book just stopped. It just ended. That’s the only way I can describe it. I felt like there could have been a more complete ending.
A look at racism through the lives of twins. This was excellent.
Started out so good, but the deviation towards focusing on the daughters and then the trans bf felt forced and like the author was trying to explore too many big issues at once. Otherwise a very well written book. DNF.
This book truly had me engaged at every page. I finished reading the book within a week and was surprised throughout the entire book. Reading is truly transformational
I don’t have a lot of words for this work of fiction that dives deeply into touchy subjects about race, gender, identity, as well as a few other lesser topics.
As it is, there is so much going on in this book. Not in an overwhelming way, but in a “how will it all connect?” way. And it does connect. Yet, the author is spare in her impeccable writing and careful not to create a spectacle of the connections. She calmly and subtly unites these characters, tentatively tethered to one another.
While I found it hard to put down while drawn into the lives of these familial connected strangers, I was also left with some questions that weren’t answered. Most likely, the intent of the author and have naught to do with the larger scope of the story. Simply, little details that my forever swirling mind focuses on.
The ending was congruent with the gentle pace of the preceding chapters and complimented the author’s precise, yet sensitive story telling. Honestly, this was the story I’ve been wanting to read among the wave of agenda-laced fiction from #ownvoice authors. Those questions I mentioned above? There are no simple answers.
Great book, I finished in three days. Well written.
I was disappointed, The book was tedious and the characters too pitiful to be realistic.
It was plot-driven, rather than character-driven. There’s nothing wrong with that, but (for me) it makes it an average read. The plot had some interesting features but was not as strong as it could have been. I would call it a beach read.
A captivated mind can either grow or commit it’s own misery…https://vocal.media/poets/living-on-the-inside-looking-out
Appreciated how the author contrasted the life choices two twins made and the consequences.
A compelling novel about twins, young black women who are “light enough” to “pass.” In the 1950s, at age 16 and faced with having to quit school to clean houses, they flee their small Deep South town of Mallard (where all the blacks are “light”) for New Orleans. There, Stella passes for white, takes a job as a secretary, and marries her white boss. Desiree marries a dark-skinned man and has a dark-skinned daughter named Jude. When the marriage turns abusive, Desiree returns to Mallard with Jude, who is scorned by the light-skinned blacks and who eventually escapes to UCLA by being a track star. If this sounds like a set of double and even triple standards (who’s scorning whom), it is. What elevated this to 5 stars for me was that Jude’s lover Reese is transsexual, in transition from woman to man. I loved the way this subplot worked delicately to multiply and complicate the theme that identity–whether based in race or gender or any category that is ostensibly “fixed” and (usually) binary–is fluid. These categories are not “natural” in the sense that they have no meaning except for what we’ve given them; they’re cultural constructs put in position to assuage some of the more primitive parts of our psychology–including our fear of the other. Definitely worth the read.
This book is hard to put down. I really liked it.
It took me a while to get past the opening chapter, which described one of the characters as so dark she was “blueblack.” Oof.
Eventually, I succumbed to the journey. The story is a nonlinear narrative, engrossing yet keeping the reader at a distance. I found myself leaving each storyline wanting more and never feeling fully satisfied, but perhaps that was the point.
Despite the meandering storylines and lack of depth exploring many of the familial issues I’d hoped for/expected, something about the voice and writing kept a hold on me. I listened to this on audio after first trying (and failing) to read it in print, and I found the narration mesmerizing. I will be interested in seeing how the HBO miniseries adapts this one to film.
(CW for racism, domestic abuse, and sexual assault.)
RATING: B
(Note: I received a review copy of this title, courtesy of the audiobook publisher.)
Thought provoking. Bennett pulled me in immediately with her characters that came alive on the page and never let go. A page-turner perfect for book club discussion about race, bigotry, secrets and lies familial love, family, identity, and so much more. I highly recommend this beautifully written novel.
Beautifully written and original. Loved.
I know this isn’t a popular opinion, but I struggled through this book. While it was well written, I felt it dragged on for me.
It is the story of two sisters, Desiree and Stella, twins who are very light skinned blacks. Desiree and Stella run away from their small town of Maynard, LA to New Orleans. From there, Desiree moved to DC and married Sam, a very dark black man, had a daughter, Jude (also very dark). Desiree leaves Sam as he is abusive and returns to her hometown. Stella moved to Boston and then CA, having married her boss, a white man, who doesn’t know that Stella is black. They have a daughter, Kennedy (light skinned blonde with violet eyes). Stella lives her life in fear that someone will discover her secret and expose her for being black, yet poses as white.
As the years go by, Kennedy and Jude meet, and then Stella meets Jude. Stella is forced to face her secret and decide what to do.
This is a tale of love, loss, relationships, and secrets.
Thanks to Edelweiss for allowing me to read this copy. My opinions are my own.
#TheVanishingHalf #BritBennett #Edelweiss
A well-written, complex plot about racism and love that left me with much to ponder.
Twin girls Desiree and Stella are born into poverty in a small town in Louisiana, known as a haven specifically for light-skinned Afro-Americans. From their earliest memories, the girls are seen by everyone as “The Twins”, without individual identities. Even though their temperaments are quite distinct. And the two are exceptionally close. It’s not surprising then, when as teenagers, they carefully execute a plan to leave their hometown, together, to explore the wider world.
From reading the publisher’s description, you will know that ultimately one twin decides to pass as white, while the other continues living as a black American. The decision forces the lives of the twins in different directions as each navigates jobs, love, marriage, and motherhood.
This is a non-linear narrative over 25 years, with episodes that catch each twin at different important moments in their individual lives. But it’s not just a story about race in America — with predictable limitations and segregation. It’s also how racism can impact love, relationships, and trust. And raises some complex questions, that are left unanswered. The very reason I am still pondering.
A very worthwhile and fast-paced read. I now plan to read other books by Brit Bennett.
This book has complex characters that draw you into the story. It is the story of Desiree and Stella Vignes, light skinned twins, who choose very different paths. Both rebel in their own way and must live with the consequences of their choices. While reading the story I was waiting to see how their paths would cross again and was surprised by the way that it happened. The story flashes back to the past and helps to fill in the story for the reader. This is an entertaining book and I can see why it has so many wonderful reviews.
In this authentic read, I found myself pulled in immediately to the story of these two light skinned black girls. The real story here, I find, is not so much about being black in a white world, although that is certainly significant, but more about being your true self in all things. When you try to be what you are not … failure is a given. I appreciated that the Vanishing Half didn’t have all the awful things that happen to black people as a main thrust, but rather a story of these two halves of a whole and how they found their way in a black and a white world. Recommended!