I did not finish this book. I did not like the way the shifts in character perspectives were set up. I wish each character perspective was its own chapter rather than just a page break. The jumps in time also confused me.

She hadn’t realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you.
― Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half

Most of experience a time in our lives when we feel like we don’t belong, that we’re impostors in our own reality. Author Brit Bennett vividly portrays those feelings in her brilliant new novel, The Vanishing Half. It’s about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who 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.

Bennett seamlessly weaves together multiple strands of this family, from the Deep South to California and New York, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Although there is a strong racial component to the book, it is not the singular focus. It is ultimately about differences and labels. The characters are well-honed and well-developed, all individuals with whom we can identify in some small measure. Stella, a well-educated, uptight suburban housewife. Desiree, a loyal, street-smart waitress, Jude, who is so dark her own people think she is too black; Kennedy, a rebellious, overindulged teen who is a disappointment to her parents, and the men and women who intersect their lives.

The Vanishing Half is powerful, poignant, stunning, thought-provoking, intricate. It’s not an easy read, but it is a beautiful one. Five stars.

This is a beautiful book...about as near to perfect as you will find. This has rich, deep characters. All of them. Every single one. The plot is timely and ripe with symbolism. Twin sisters, born in a small black town known for the light complexion of its inhabitants, choose divergent paths. One chooses to live as a part of the black community, and the other chooses to pass for white. Compelling...but that is just the beginning of this incredibly layered narrative. I love this book, and I know some folks that will find this under the Christmas tree this year! Thank you NetGalley and publishers for providing a digital ARC for review.

I really liked this story and have been recommending it to everyone. A clever and thought-provoking story that will captivate readers,.

While this book was a good and thoughtful read and is being very well received, i thought some of the characters could have been better developed and found the ending somewhat lacking. Interesting premise, but handled somewhat superficially.

I did enjoy this book, and thought the storytelling was done well. But, for some reason it just felt a little slow to me. I did enjoy reading about the twins and how their lives differed.

I'd heard nothing but rave reviews for this book and it lived up to expectations. It was beautifully written. The story seamlessly transitions from sister to sister, daughter to daughter, through time. Bennett told a story that gets you thinking about race and identity and what it means to decide who you are or who you are going to be.

I've been working to read more diverse books this year, and I am I glad I've been doing so - this book was phenomonal - I really enjoyed it, and would certainly pick up any of her other works. The story of light skinned twins in the 1950s who eventually grow up and one twin passes over to the white side of society and the other does not. Eventually the lives of their daughters cross. I halfway couldn't put it down, and then kept putting it down b/c I wasn't ready for it to end. Highly recommend.

Compelling. A quick read. A lot of build up for an unexpected ending. Still enjoyable. Could be a college class close read for sure.

This was such a great book! I LOVED it! It was timely and unique. I am going to recommend it to my patrons who are in book clubs. I think this would be a great book to discuss. Will be excited for future books by this author!

I loved this novel. So many layers, so many thought provoking examinations of selfhood. Beautifully written. I will definitely recommend this one.

This was an amazing, compelling book. The author pulls no punches about what it was like to live in a Black community mid-century, especially for women. The two sisters' mysterious disappearance is explained with good pacing--gradual but not dragging. Characters are mostly wonderfully three dimensional especially main and secondary characters. You feel you almost know most of them (despite their life being so different from mine--I'm roughly a generation below the main characters and a northern white woman. Even though I usually am not interested in realistic fiction this book really grabbed me. I'll be recommending this one for sure.

I guess this book just was not for me. I tried and tried to read it but I actually never was able to finish it which is something that doesn't often happen for me. I may try to pick it up again later but it was just so slow.

Outstanding literary fiction with strong characters and locations. Highly recommended. For fans of her first book or fans Faulkner and O'Connor.

Bennet's first work was better. This one was okay. But, it felt like it was missing something. The characters had ordinary and extraordinary lives all at same time. It was a good, but unsatisfactory story.

This book is so important for this time of racial injustice and unrest. Twin sisters, Stella and Desiree, once so close they slept in one bed, leave their home after sharing so many experiences, including the lynching of their father. Stella disappears, and Desiree ends up going back to the small town she came from, a daughter in tow. Desiree lives as a Black woman, although light skinned, while her daughter is dark Black. Stella passes as a white woman, and the difference in their lives and families are stark and telling. Well written and thought provoking, I recommend this novel. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Brit Bennett's second novel, The Vanishing Half (after The Mothers, her 2016 bestselling debut), follows Desiree and Stella Vignes, identical twins born in 1938 in Mallard, Louisiana, a town so small it can't even be found on a map. Settled by the girls' ancestors, the town prides itself on its residents being primarily African Americans with very light skin tones (the lighter, the more prized). The girls run away to New Orleans when they turn 16. Desiree returns home 14 years later with her eight-year-old daughter, Jude, whose skin is so dark it's blue-black, touching off a firestorm of gossip and invective that impacts both mother and child. Stella, on the other hand, disappears without a trace, reinventing herself as a white woman with no family and no past. Marrying outside her race she gives birth to Kennedy, a blond, blue-eyed daughter. As Jude and Kennedy reach adulthood, each seeks to establish her place in the world and to uncover the secrets of her mother's past.

The narrative explores many important topics through the lives of these four women. Covering the time period from the World War II era through 1986, the author portrays the changing face of racism in the United States as exhibited not only by whites, but within Black communities as well, with light-skinned Blacks discriminating against those who are darker. Bennett also addresses the themes of family, identity and privilege, and illustrates the evolution of women's rights during this time period. That seems like a lot to tackle within one short novel, and in less-skilled hands the story might have become a slow plod, weighed down by its heavy themes. The author interweaves these subjects and others so skillfully, though, that the narrative soars, and it's only on reflection that one realizes its remarkable depth.

The Vanishing Half is captivating in large part because of the fully-realized characters Bennett has created. The women grow and change over the course of the story as they deal with loves and losses, joys and disappointments; they feel like real-life people we've met, and we grow to care deeply about them. Not only are the four central characters drawn with a fine pen, even minor characters are imbued with complexity, adding to the novel's richness.

The other highlight is the author's vivid writing style. While seldom using colloquialism in her text, she nevertheless captures the lyricism of Southern dialog throughout her prose:

[The residents of Mallard] weren't used to having a dark child amongst them and were surprised by how much it upset them. Each time that girl passed by, no hat or nothing, they were as galled as when Thomas Richard returned from the war, half a leg lighter, and walked around the town with one pant leg pinned back so that everyone could see his loss. If nothing could be done about ugliness, you ought to at least look like you were trying to hide it.

Truisms abound, adding further flavor to the narration; for example, Desiree despises the local boys because "nothing made a boy less exciting than the fact that you were supposed to like him," and "the Mallard boys seemed as familiar and safe as cousins." Later, she doesn't tell her mother about her marriage because, she thinks, "What was the point of sharing good news with someone who couldn't be happy for you?"

My only complaint is that I found the plot overly dependent on coincidence. One accidental meeting over the course of a novel, OK, perhaps; maybe even two such encounters would be acceptable. But there were at least four major turning points that relied on unlikely circumstances, which seemed a bit much. I did enjoy the direction the author took her story, but the repeated reliance on this plot device cast a shadow on an otherwise exceptional work.

Regardless, The Vanishing Half is one of my favorite novels of the year; it's entertaining, fast-moving, has great characters, and Bennett's writing style is absolutely stellar from start to finish. Fans of novels such as Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Kathryn Stockett's The Help, or The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd will almost certainly enjoy this one as well, as will those interested in reading about mother-daughter relationships. The book would also be an ideal choice for book groups.

A good book club selection, a timely read considering the current race issues occurring in the US. The writing was very well done, the characters so interesting as they struggled to find themselves.

This is perfectly written and I wished it never ended, pushed myself to read it slower, rereading some chapters over and over! It’s phenomenal and one of the best readings of the year!

An absolutely must-read in 2020: Twins born in a small Southern town run away to escape a sad and predetermined life. One sister goes off to marry a dark-skinned man and have a daughter. While the other twin decides to pass as white and live a life free of the burdens of racism. Neither gets the life she expected, and their paths cross when their daughters have a fated encounter in L.A.

This is a fantastic look at the consequences of systemic racism in America. We can see both sides of the same coin as the twins navigate their lives. The characters are complicated and honest. The story is fast paced and thought-provoking. Highly recommend!