%2Fblur-book-book-pages-2128012.jpg?alt=media&token=6a74ee22-502c-4456-be48-fc32cd62e846)
The Vanishing Half
2020 . Fiction, History, Classics . Brit Bennett
8.0
Everyone
About the book
4.3/5.0
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.
Featured on:
Year:
2020
Language:
English
Pages:
343
Reviews
Jannine Jackson
3 weeks ago
7
Beautiful story about race, class and perception
Tony Lashley
1 month ago
8
Masterfully crafted book that will almost surely be a movie in 2022 or 2023 with its incredibly vivid imagery
Cailin Cowley
1 month ago
8
Great read that dives into what it’s like to be a Black woman.
Annie Hickman
1 month ago
8
I really enjoyed this book - it was not what I expected at all! Thoughtful exploration of identity, wrapped in a compelling plot.
Melinda Andrade
1 month ago
6
From all the hype, I was really excited about this one. It fell short of what I think it could have been.
New York Times Best Sellers 
3 months ago
10
The lives of twin sisters who run away from a Southern Black community at age 16 diverge as one returns and the other takes on a different racial identity but their fates intertwine.