The Vanishing Half
By: Brit Bennett
Released: June 2nd, 2020
Pages: 343
My Rating: 4/5
Goodreads Synopsis:
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.
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.
My Review:
Wow, what a book! This novel packs a punch with an amazing storyline and covers a diverse range of topics. This novel walks you through race, motherhood, identity, and gender in such a beautiful way. I flew through this book and even though I found some of the middle bits to be a bit on the slower side I never felt like I was bored. When I finished it I definitely had to take a seat to think about everything I just consumed. I believe this to be a perfect book given the times right now and that everyone should read it because you can take away so much from it!
The Vanishing Half is a character driven novel (my favorite!) that follows twins Desiree and Stella and their daughters who grew up in completely different environments. Stella has vowed to live a life pretending to be something she is not, white, while Desiree does not lose sight of who she truly is.
Jude, Desiree's daughter is black and Kennedy, Stella's daughter, is white. The novel follows the struggles they both face having lived such separate lives. Jude faces many racial struggles, while Kennedy faces not fully knowing who she is because everything she has been told by her mother has been a lie. Obviously one storyline has more turmoil involved (cough, cough, Jude) but through Kennedys storyline you get to see the toll it takes pretending to be someone you are not. Through their stories you are also introduced to a wide variety of side characters who I adored and who all face their own set of challenges. They help add to the concepts brought up in the storyline by adding differing viewpoints, or in some instances mirroring the opposite of some of our main characters.
Again, this book covers far more than just race, but also gender, identity, belonging, motherhood, and more. If you are looking for a very meaningful read that is more relevant than ever, do not hesitate to pick up a copy of The Vanishing Half, and if you have already, please let me know what some of your favorite parts/quotes are!
Catch you later,
Molly
Comments
Post a Comment