Stephanie Sullivan: Review - The Vanishing Half

July 30, 2021

TITLE: The Vanishing Half

RATING: ★★★★

Summary (from 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. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other 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: This book was beautifully written, but when I turned the last page there was one emotion that stood out to me above the others - sadness. Although the story was very poignant and profound, it still saddened me how some of the characters wanted so badly to be someone else - so much so that they lied to their loved ones for many years and caused them unimaginable pain and suffering. To me, that’s just heartbreaking and tragic. Still, I would recommend this book to everyone, but with a word of caution...if you don’t like sad stories, then this might not be the one for you.