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Want to know if you should read The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett? Read my full review to help you decide!
TWINS, INSEPARABLE AS CHILDREN, ULTIMATELY CHOOSE TO LIVE IN TWO VERY DIFFERENT WORLDS: ONE BLACK AND ONE WHITE
The Vignes 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 twos she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, although separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remained intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ story lines intersect?
Weaving together multiple stands and generations, The Vanishing Half is at one a riveting family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, it considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations.
SUMMARY: THE VANISHING HALF
REVIEW: THE VANISHING HALF
When I shop for books, I usually buy at least three at a time because I go through them so quickly. Every book is carefully selected because for me, picking books is an experience in synchronicity. I believe in buying the right book at the right time. If you’ve ever had the experience of selecting a book, reading it, and it speaking to where you are in life at that exact moment, you’ll understand what I mean.
I was first attracted to The Vanishing Half because of its colorful book cover and then intrigued by the summary. I was also impressed with the author’s accomplishments. Brit Bennet’s debut novel, The Mothers, was a New York Times bestseller and finalist for the NBCC John Leonard First Novel Prize and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut fiction. The Vanishing Half, which is her second novel, was a finalist for the Women’s Prize and one of the 10 Best Books of 2020, according to The New York Times.
The Vanishing Half is a story of choices, survival, family, and coming home. It is an exceptional book, and I am a better person because I read it. It’s heartbreaking, beautiful, tragic and full of hope all at the same time. Brit Bennett left no stone unturned. The characters are fully developed. You feel like you know them, like they’re y our family members, or friends, or neighbors. I was invested in every character’s life and choices. The plot is advanced, developed, simple but complicated.
The Vanishing Half is all about the choices we make, the reasons we make those choices, the implications and consequences of those choices on ourselves and on those who love us. It is powerful. Relatable. Important. The book explores the characters’ past lives, shows us their current lives and takes into their future. It is a transformative story that made me really think. It made me dig deep. It led me to empathy for characters who did the unthinkable. Sometimes characters become unlikeable to me because of their actions, but even if I didn’t agree with a character’s actions in The Vanishing Half, I could at least understand the why. I never lost my compassion for a single character, and I rooted for every single one of them.
If you enjoy intelligent, thoughtful, explorative, important works, then you absolutely need to read The Vanishing Half. It’s intriguing, and it’s a story that’s hard to put down. I often read at night before I go to bed, and when I was reading this book, I found myself midday excitedly thinking about bedtime. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett is a must read.