The Vanishing Half
Books | Fiction / Women
4.4
(26.4K)
Brit Bennett
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEARNAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES • THE WASHINGTON POST • NPR • PEOPLE • TIME MAGAZINE • VANITY FAIR • GLAMOUR New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century 2021 WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST “Bennett’s tone and style recalls James Baldwin and Jacqueline Woodson, but it’s especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s 1970 debut novel, The Bluest Eye.” —Kiley Reid, Wall Street Journal “A story of absolute, universal timelessness . . . For any era, it's an accomplished, affecting novel. For this moment, it’s piercing, subtly wending its way toward questions about who we are and who we want to be….” – Entertainment WeeklyFrom The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. 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. As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.
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More Details:
Author
Brit Bennett
Pages
352
Publisher
Penguin
Published Date
2020-06-02
ISBN
0525536973 9780525536970
Community ReviewsSee all
"Loved it. Glad it doesn't end in some cutesy neat bow for the ones that wanted that. Real life isn't like that and especially not in a country drowning in racism. "
L G
Lorisa G
"When I initially started to read this book, I read the first chapter and it wasn’t the right time for me to read it. I am so happy I picked this book back up because the writing was phenomenal. I’m from Louisiana and I know of those small towns the twins were from. In fact, my family was from a town that no longer “exists” on the map anymore. I was captivated in every way how the twins split, one becoming a white woman and the other kept to her roots and maintained she was indeed a black girl. Creoles live a lonely life, they never seem to fit in any category because of their “yellow skin”. <br/><br/>I loved that this went past multi generations and how the two nieces grew up with such different life’s because of the color difference of the skin. <br/><br/>This is a moving, touching and makes you realize just how important family is to you. No one can truly understand you like your family can. <br/><br/>My only downside was that there wasn’t that first chapter hook."
"Liked it"
D L
Dana Lancaster
" Very interesting read."
F R
Freda Richards
"One of my top 5 of 2020. "
L T
Liana Torresola