Brit Bennett | THE VANISHING HALF

Plot (via Goodreads):

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. Ten 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.

Review:

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett is an emotionally-charged and mesmerizing novel that combines a family drama with different stories including racism, sexuality, and society. Right from the beginning, I loved the Vignes twins and getting to know them and the people they loved and their daughters throughout different timelines was a sensational reading experience. I found Bennett's writing to be poetic and beautiful, yet emotional and moving.

The story of two light-skinned African American women who go in completely different directions in life made this story so riveting and emotional. This novel is definitely very character-driven and Bennett does a phenomenal job building a family tree full of people that you need to continue to read about, you get so involved with their lives that it's like trying to move away from your best friend. I loved that this one had a lengthy timeline that showed these women go from teenagers to adults to mothers. Even though it's not a thriller, there were so many "cliffhanger" moments at the end of the chapters that were jaw-dropping that made me want to continue reading even more. While this is outside of my usual reading genre, I found it to be a novel that is both informative and astonishing. This book definitely will bring out a variety of emotions in its reader and give you plenty to think about. Once this was over, it took me about five days to even dare to pick up a new book, that's how intense my book hangover was with this one. I cannot recommend it enough.

Rating: 5/5