User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Congrats for its big win as the best historical fiction from Goodreads Choice Awards! At least this time the book I chose is a great winner! 🎈🎉🥂🥳
News flash: HBO and Brit Bennett made a 7 figure deal for the adaptation of the book into limited series!🎉🎈
Wowza! This is unique! This is impeccable! 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!
Welcome to Mallard/Louisa: small town can be hardly found ( or never found) on your maps: maybe you may accidentally find there during your unluckiest hitchhiking experience. A town has been founded by Alphonse Decuir, inherited acres of land from his father, making this place the home of people who are not accepted in the white community but also who reject to be treated like negroes. And in 1938 two little girls- identical twins: Stella and Desiree Vignes were born. Throughout the years they have been having hard times to find their places in the community, Desiree always told her sister she would find a way to get the hell of there. It’s not easy to relate in place where its people think if you have lighter skin, you may have better luck.
And when they are sixteen, their mother pushes them to leave school and work in a wealthy white people’s gorgeous mansion as cleaners. Stella starts yearning the rich people’s lives as Desiree dreams other possibilities they can have. When she watches Roman Holiday at the theater she dreams to be actress which makes her thing endless possibilities of outer world as soon as she escape from her prisoner life in the town.
And one day: they truly leave the town to go to New Orleans, only two hours away. But as you can imagine: running away from your home in your young ages without enough money and life experiment push the girls’ limits. They may take risks or go back to the place where they run. So both of them take different paths which result with different life patterns: Stella marries with a wealthy white man and has a girl who thinks she is white as Desiree chooses to end her relationship with her abusive husband and go back to Mallard 14 years later with her child and because of her child’s dark skin she is not welcomed by town’s people.
Even though I had some prejudged approach to Stella’s life choices, it was impossible not to ache for her as you witness her melancholy, loneliness, trying to living a lie.
Throughout 40 years, we witness twins’ lives and see how their daughters’ paths cross.
Normally I don’t like to read stories told by too many POVS which could be confusing and create unnecessary commotion in my head but this time hearing multiple voices and reading the incredible stories which are connected and completed each other like puzzle pieces were joyful reading experience for me.
This story is truly though-provoking, extremely emotional, soul crushing, realistic, shaking you to the core. This is one of the books stay with you forever. I truly enjoyed each chapter, characters and I highly recommend it to fiction, historical fiction genre lovers.
After this fantastic literature feast, I’m looking forward to read the author’s previous work: “Mothers”
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Rating: really liked it
What a tour de force Bennett has achieved with
The Vanishing Half. Brilliant and complex, this story surpassed all my expectations and more.
Twins Desiree and Stella couldn't wait to leave behind the small, black town they've grown up in. At sixteen, they finally seize their chance and run away. More than a decade later, the twins have lost touch with each other. One comes back to town with a black daughter, while the other lives across the country, passing for white while hiding her past. As time goes on, they and their respective daughters realize you can never quite cut the ties of the past.
This book touches upon so many worthy topics. The themes of race and racism captured in this book are among the most nuanced and insightful I have come across. At its core, racism is the opportunity for one group to make themselves feel better by acting out to oppress another. There is no group that is immune to being the oppressor, including those that are oppressed themselves. The way the light-skinned colored people of Mallard act towards dark-skinned people both captures the insidiousness of racism (racism only begets more racism) and its pervasiveness in society. I appreciate the book's honesty on this, no matter how disheartening it is to think about.
Another interesting theme captured over and over is whether someone can ever leave their past and heritage behind to make a clean start. The twins ran away thinking they could be the controller of their own destiny. But as they grow older and their paths diverge, it becomes apparent that their years growing up in Mallard continues to follow them. Even as they meet different opportunities and experiences, their past still contributes to shape their decisions and ultimately where they end up. It's possible to live separate lives through different decisions, as illustrated by the twins' dual contrasting paths, but they still remain within the parameters of their past.
The twins' daughters are also molded by their mothers, yet they are a new generation, the first to break through the confines of their mothers' past. The daughters could truly say they are making strides when it comes to racism, having been given increased opportunities, which allow them to become more open and accepting than their mothers (as racism begets more racism, opportunities beget less). Another interesting point is that one daughter grew up with privilege and wealth, while the other grew up wanting. Yet, through choices and motivations, the one who grew up with less arguably ended up with more. And that is an encouraging thought.
This story covers so much ground, both in terms of the strands of the twins' and their daughters' narratives, as well as its exploration of race, gender, identity, and belonging. The writing is beautiful and poignant, flowing smoothly along while guiding the reader from one insightful observation to another. What a powerful read, indeed.
Rating: really liked it
That was the problem: you could never love two people the exact same way. Her blessing had been doomed from the beginning, her girls as impossible to please as jealous gods.
I can see now why everyone is raving about this book. The Vanishing Half has unforgettable characters, complex familial ties, long-lost sisters, tragedy, and romance. Very compelling (I was hooked straight away) and beautifully-written.
I think this book works so well because the author has very carefully and thoughtfully balanced out a deeply sad story about families torn apart and race-- and how different life could and can be for those able to pass as white --with stories of love and triumph. At the same time as my heart was aching for Desiree or Jude, I was smiling as Early found Desiree again, and rejoicing at the strength of the bond between Jude and Reese.
The story is about twin sisters, Desiree and Stella, who one day decide to run away from their small town and go to the city to find a new life for themselves. A few years later, Desiree comes back to her mother's house with a child in tow, while Stella disappears to who-knows-where to pursue a life passing as a white woman. Desiree never stops looking for her twin, her other half, even as life sets them on such completely different paths.
Spanning years and generations, the book follows first the twins and then their daughters.
There's a lot of nuance given to the exploration of race and colourism in this book. Stella is a fascinating character, nursing a lot of internalized anti-blackness as she plays this role of a white woman. Her own internalized racism stems from a horrific event she witnessed as a child, causing her to seek safety and freedom behind a shield of whiteness.
The different perspectives of the novel allow us as the reader to see Stella through an outsider's eyes-- as someone selfish and racist, who would abandon or betray others for her own sake --and also through her own eyes-- as someone terrified, desperate for a chance at something more than what life has dealt her.
A great book to read, think about, discuss, and then read again.
Rating: really liked it
Brit Bennett's intricate plot lines and ability to weave family dramas that stretch through years is definitely something to be admired. My only wish is that her characters would jump off the page a bit more rather than just remain vessels/outlines for her stories to play out through. However, I think this book deserves much of the hype it has received and the complex look it provides at race, identity, and motherhood (among other things) while remaining very accessible is truly where it's at.
New auto-read author? Methinks yes.
Rating: really liked it
Although the first 1/3 of the book was slow, once we start to see how two generations diverge and they connect later on, I became invested in each person's individual journeys as they grappled with race, loneliness, colorism, abuse, motherhood, and a sense of identity. I enjoyed reading about these women and also adored the male side characters (Reese makes me so soft!) It’s a poignant and lovely story that takes you through several lifetimes with empathy and hope.
Rating: really liked it
Completely absorbing. Intricate prose. Deep characterization. Bennett exceeded my expectations with her second novel.
Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars. I enjoy Bennett as a writer, but I felt like this book didn't come all the way together. I wanted it to either be a more focused book with half the plot or to really go big and have more about all the characters.
At first it feels like this book is going to be entirely about colorism and the strange town of Mallard, Louisiana where light-skinned Black people have effectively segregated themselves. The story begins here, with the story of twins Stella and Desiree, who grow up and then escape the town. Desiree returns after leaving her abusive husband with her dark-skinned daughter Jude. And at this point I thought this may be the real focus of the book. But then we seem to jump so quickly through time, which threw me somewhat off kilter. Desiree doesn't want to stay, but she does. And it is hard to understand why she stays knowing how unwelcome the town is for her daughter, but we gloss over it and start jumping ahead to when Jude finally leaves, moving into the other part of the story, set mostly in Southern California where Jude goes to college and then encounters long-lost Stella, who has cut off communication with her family and now passes for white.
Then we have another section of the story, filling out those years of Stella's life, and this was much of the best of the book. Stella, always so afraid of being found out, develops a strange and complicated friendship with a Black family that moves in across the street in their wealthy subdivision. We get to see why Stella passes but all the ways in which it has complicated her life and her own identity.
But then we push forward again, leaving just as a plot is really diving into what's interesting. The sections between cousins-but-also-strangers Kennedy and Jude are not as interesting as I wanted them to be, and didn't really dive very far into how different these women's lives are, race matters somewhat, but it's not clear what the daughters are here to tell us.
I also have to note that I was frustrated and concerned by Jude's plot, which mostly centers around her relationship with Reese, a trans man. Almost all of the elements around Reese and queerness felt vague and fuzzy when many other things were given to us in such detail. Reese passes as a cis man so easily that after several years everyone wonders why Reese and Jude are still unmarried. Equating passing as a trans person with racial passing makes me feel very uncomfortable. They are not things that can and should be compared. So I had my hackles up almost immediately when Reese entered the story. And for much of Jude's first section, we get the typical kind of Trans 101 you expect when the cis character is the focus of the story and the trans character is a kind of window dressing. I was also confused by many of the details around Jude and Reese's social life, where they are out with groups of gay men and going to drag shows in the 70's. It isn't impossible, but spaces for gay men haven't exactly been open and friendly to trans men, and it would be unusual for a trans man with a girlfriend to be in that kind of space. (Yes, queer people have often been terrible and exclusionary and sexist and racist and plenty of other things.) The drag, again, seems to hammer in this idea of taking on a new identity as recurring theme, but again I am not sure that it really works. It is nice that Jude is so accepting but she's so accepting and they face no real repercussions to their relationship that sometimes it seems to almost invalidate the difficulties a trans man and his partner would have faced at the time.
Without the queer issues, this would have still been a solid 4 stars for me, but I really couldn't get past it. Trans rep in fiction is certainly up, but there is so often this feeling that they aren't quite as fully real as other characters, that their trans-ness is there for some kind of message, and it really bothers me.
I did this book on audio and it probably didn't help that I didn't like the reader.
Rating: really liked it
3.5
Two Black twins, so “light” they could “pass” for White.
And, this story exploring “ PASSING” - a term I was not familiar with.
One of the twins will choose to do just that-live life as a White woman.
Her husband will never know the truth.
She will not get to celebrate milestones with her twin sister or mother.
She will not be able to share her heritage with her own daughter.
I found this book to be profoundly SAD.
IMAGINE believing that it would be worth LOSING all of that, to be WHITE?
I enjoyed the first half of this book, when I learned about “Passing” and the story focused on the twin sisters..Desiree and Stella.
The second half was not as strong for me, when the story shifted to their daughters, Jude and Kennedy, and the focus of race and “passing” became diluted with another theme, regarding a character named Reese.
I understand it was another way to explore “Identity”.
But, the book would’ve been more powerful for ME if the narratives had remained with the sisters-I wanted to spend more time with Desiree after she returned home-
So we could see both her struggles and also the riches that she DID have-
by having Adele, Jude, Early and the community of Mallard in her life.
So that we could compare, and contrast, their two choices in more depth.
To fully explore “PASSING”.
I needed to feel more of the PAIN (of EACH sister) that resulted from Stella’s choice..
As I wondered how many women who chose to PASS, would choose that path again?
Relevant
Timely.
Available now!!
Thank you to the publisher for providing a digital ARC through Edelweiss in exchange for a candid review!
Rating: really liked it
I went into this book with high expectations, considering that I hadn’t seen one single negative review; everyone loved it and found it important and was mind-blown by the quality of the writing.
But then I read it myself and found, instead, just a story told at the speed of light as the author jumps in time and doesn't tie any end to any of her characters’ life chapters, as well as a plethora of characters out of whom none experience any in-depth analysis or development. I will put it simply:
what I liked about the book-
clearly enough, the subject matter. White passing is a relatively new theme in contemporary novels (as far as I’m concerned), and I think Bennett did a good job at highlighting the issue. However, I found it that it was only well-presented and analysed in the beginning, when we see the differences in perception of the two sisters. These differences between them were always painstakingly parallel to one another: one marries a dark-skinned man, the other does the opposite; one ends up running away from an abusive companion and finds love with a man she refuses to marry, the other happily marries and finds understanding in spite of her odd behaviour; one comes back to her childhood village and rejoices in a simple life as a bartendress, the other lives a wealthy life in a wealthy district.
In the latter parts of the novel, I wished to see more of Stella’s own viewpoint and motives. She remained reluctant and confused throughout the narrative, as we are revealed (as with all the other characters) only some heads up information that would allow us to continue reading. The main idea that you get about why Stella chooses to become white is because she can, and because it offers her a chance at a life that she deems ideal. But until the end, these problematic ideals are not dealt with. When the two sisters finally find each other again, Desiree quickly forgives Stella (I know they are sisters and have some kind of bond, and blood is thicker than water, and all that stuff about family being the most important, but Stella dismissed Desiree and left her behind for so many years, only to come back with the sole motive of begging her sister to talk down Jude into leaving Kennedy alone).
I don’t have a term of comparison for the theme of white passing (I do plan on reading Nella Larsen’s Passing). But I did not enjoy the fact that the theme is not fully exploited. I sincerely think this is not a case of a white person wishing to be given all these sides of a problem on a plate. But I do not think Stella’s motives were exploited much beyond her childhood realization that she could pass for white, and her deep fears of being caught in the act. I enjoyed certain scenes that showed how guilty she felt, and her impostor syndrome, but I somehow still wanted a more in depth view, which may have been easier to achieve from a first person narrative.
what I did NOT like-
the style and the lack of character development The characters were uni-dimensional, I felt them as strangers until the end. The few bits about their inner life were played down, and sometimes you were even given information that would not help you in any way throughout the story. Equally, the characters only had one or two traits that defined them throughout the whole book, and some of them did not even act like actual people, only tools for someone else’s ‘arc’. Stella was a liar with a very confused behaviour. Desiree was an uplifting woman that had her own emotional issues. Here, we don’t know much about Early, because he is only in the story to bring some happiness into Desiree’s life. Jude was a stubborn smart girl, who is present only to discover Stella and to tell Kennedy the truth about her family. Kennedy was a spoiled and rebellious girl and we know she is a talented actress, too. Audrey is just killed off in the end.
-
the abrupt time jumps. Every 2-3 chapters or so, the narrative would jump ahead 10 years or so in time. There was no linearity, as the author only wanted you to know this nice emotional story, but would not care to fill you in on what went on behind the curtain, what the characters really FELT.
-
the happy coincidences. The story is full to the brim with them. Characters manage to magically meet each other, in spite of how unrealistic that is (take Early’s fortunate meeting with the girl he fell in love with as a little boy, and Jude meeting Kennedy, among others). I know things like these happen in books, but they rather happen in fairytales or rom-coms or children’s books, hardly in books nominated for literary awards, I would say?
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Reese and the lack of trans awareness. There is a trans character in this book and we do not get much from him besides being shown his insecurities and his wish to have a surgery. He is a tool used for debating Jude’s romantic life and her fears of entering an abusive relationship like that of her mother’s. Reese is a ticked box for LGBTQ+ diversity. We don’t even see him talk too often, besides the moments when he is a good boyfriend to Jude.
Before the end of this, I should mention that my antipathy towards the style of this book may be a subjective thing. I am usually into first-person narratives or stream of consciousness novels, where I am given a full spectrum of a character’s inner world. I don’t usually read books that only tell stories and jump from one character to another and I always expect some character development or for the book to dwell on feelings, thoughts, hidden motives, allowing the reader to have his own opinion, and not being served a cardboard character on a plate.
Lastly, I am white. I understand that my perception of this book may come from a place of privilege, of being given a story of four Black women whose experience I cannot fully grasp, as my own has been and will always be completely different. I have checked myself for all of the flaws I found in the book and do not consider they have to do with a racial bias, but rather with the way the story is told. There is an analysis of racial identity that helped me better understand the issue, and I am glad I read the book. However, I did not fully engage with the story and I do see why the book is popular. I just think it is a little bit overhyped.
Rating: really liked it
I'm not sure I have words for how excellent this book turned out to be, but terms such as "breathtaking, poignant, and ultimately hopeful" come to mind. I was constantly reminded of the golden oldie movie
Imitation of Life (1959) in regards to the discussions surround race, class, and gender, while also featuring a plot thread where a light skinned Black teenager is living her life passing as white. If you are wary of the hype, like I typically am, please know this is one instance where the substantial amount of praise is fully warranted, and I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a story that is equal parts educational and entertaining.
Rating: really liked it
oooh, goodreads choice awards finalist for best historical fiction 2020! what will happen?THIS HAPPENED:
CONGRATULATIONS, WINNER! goodreads choice awards best HISTORICAL FICTION 2020!There were many ways to be alienated from someone, few to actually belong.i know it looks like i’m over here five-starring a lot of books in a row all of a sudden, but it’s not so much that i’ve lucked into a run of excellent reading choices as it is me finally sitting down to review books so good it's been intimidating me to even
think about reviewing them.
ALTHOUGH—if we’re being super-duper honest, Blacktop Wasteland and Betty were both 4s going in (but 4.5s in my heart) that got bumped up to fives when rereading them for the review made me remember how dingdang good they were. this one was a five out of the gate.
it’s so good i don’t even know where to start. it’s a family saga that takes place over the course of forty or so years, beginning in 1938 with the birth of twin sisters stella and desiree vignes in the town of mallard, louisiana; a black community with an unusual beginning:
The idea arrived to Alphonse Decuir in 1848, as he stood in the sugarcane fields he’d inherited from the father who’d once owned him. The father now dead, the now-freed son wished to build something on those acres of land that would last for centuries to come. A town for men like him, who would never be accepted as white but refused to be treated like Negroes. A third place.
the residents embraced their founder’s dream of
a more perfect Negro. Each generation lighter than the one before, and by the time the vignes girls—his great-great-great-granddaughters—are born, his bloodline has been bleached into “creamy skin, hazel eyes, [and] wavy hair," none of which attributes protect them from racism; from seeing their father lynched in their home when they are little girls, or from race factoring into their lives and shaping their opportunities when they run away from home as teenagers.
they live together in new orleans for a few years before stella abruptly cuts ties with her sister and disappears into a new life that she will live as a white woman—marrying a wealthy white man and raising a daughter who has no idea she's anything but white. meanwhile, desiree will leave the abusive father of her own daughter and move back to mallard, her child's exceptional darkness there unexpected, unwelcome.
eventually, three generations of paths will cross, secrets will be discovered, everyone'll have to address their choices.
honestly, i don’t want to blah and blah about plot—i always spend way too much time on silly reviews, writing 20-page dissertations on minutiae that nobody cares about but meeeee before deleting all of it anyway and i need to stop being foolish with my time and learn to do things in miniaturized efficiency when i’m not getting paid.
but i will say that this is a tremendous second novel after a really impressive debut and bennett writes beautifully about family and grief and identity and being deeply, unbearably lonely—the loneliness of the estranged twins, the self-othering loneliness isolating stella
from her old life and
in her new one, the loneliness of growing up dark in a colorstruck town etc etc. i'm doing it again so i'm gonna shut myself up now because i loved every little bit of this novel and we could be here all day if i don't put a stop to it now.
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The Mothers was good, this one is GOLD.
review to come ASAP.
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my SECOND goodreads-win of 2020!!
this is the only good thing in the world right now.
come to my blog!
Rating: really liked it
Everyone on earth spent the entirety of last year telling everyone else that this book is excellent and brilliant and a must read, and then I showed up deeply and profoundly late to the party only to say the same thing.
And in case you needed one more person telling you the same thing to push you over the edge - this is truly good stuff.
I took a while to warm up to it, but basically reading this book is suddenly being adopted into a family and at first you're like "??? what is this what is happening and why should I care," but once you settle in and allow everyone and everything to grow on you...boom.
Then this cast of characters is a set of loved ones to you, and you feel their pain and are invested in their stories, and it's wonderful.
And very sad. Obviously.
Like life or whatever...I don't know. Insert some powerful truism or trite cliché or other fitting expression here.
Bottom line: All I have to say is what everyone else did: good things!
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pre-reviewfinishing this felt like saying goodbye to my family.
review to come / 4.5 stars
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currently-reading updatesmy favorite way to feel stupid is by highly anticipating a book forever but not picking it up and then not being able to put it down when i finally do
Rating: really liked it
4.5 Stars
Rating: really liked it
“She was always inventing her life.”
Twin sisters. Two different paths: One chooses black. The other white. Their choices reflect societal norms, gender constructs, and racial inequality in contemporary America.Stella and Desiree grow up in Mallard, LA. Mallard, a town comprised of light-skinned black people, has a fascinating history.
I could read a whole book just about Mallard. When the sisters run away to New Orleans, they see their escape as a time to reinvent themselves:
"Stella became white and Desiree married the darkest man she could find."Stella chooses to pass as white. Her choice allows her to live a life filled with opportunity and privilege. At the same time, she is without her family. She is perpetually uncomfortable and is teetering on the edge of someone finding out her secret, so she makes the effort to bury her true self and live a life built on fragile lies. Most significantly, she chooses a life without her other half, her sister.
Desiree’s choices result in her being stuck; stuck in a town she can’t leave, without a career, without a life. Nearly broken from her sister’s choice to leave her, she never gives up hope of finding Stella until it’s nearly too late.
Through Stella and Desiree’s choices, Bennett juxtaposes race, gender, class, and sexuality.
Bennett doesn’t simplify the outcomes of Stella and Desiree’s choices, rather she complicates them to expose the convoluted hierarchies of American culture and society. The Vanishing Half is a thought-provoking, complex, and timely read. I was entranced by Desiree and Stella’s stories, and I know I will be thinking about these characters for a long time.
I received an ARC of this book from Edelweiss and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: really liked it
This is a thought provoking story and a few scenes were not easy to read. There’s racism here, a violent incident against a man, witnessed by his young twin daughters, and more trauma for one of the girls than we want to imagine. This and their upbringing in a small black community in Louisiana where people believe the lighter they are the better life will be. So it wasn’t a surprise that when twin sisters Desiree and Stella Vignes run away at sixteen, that their futures would take them on journeys seeking their identities. Although inseparable as young girls, they part ways and their chosen lives take very different paths. While it’s easy to connect with Desiree and the choices she makes, it’s not very easy to accept how Stella has chosen to live a lie and was most of the time unlikable. Yet, I was still drawn to her and felt for her, trying to understand her more.
While racial identity is the core of the story, there are so many other layers here with characters that the author portrays in such a way that I got a sense of who they were, even if at times they questioned their own identities. The story is told from multiple points of view - the sisters Desiree and Stella and later their daughters, Jude and Kennedy, each of them searching it seemed, to find their true selves. It’s about different kinds of relationships between sisters, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, women and the men in their lives, cousins who find each other. There are other elements to the story such as spousal abuse and sexual identity. Almost all of the characters found a way to my heart. I found this to be such a well written story that captivated me from the first page and made me want to get to Britt Bennett’s debut novel The Mothers, which has been on my list.
As always I’m grateful to read along with Diane and Esil. I love our discussions and sharing our perspectives .
I received an advanced copy of this book from Riverhead/Penguin through EdelweissZ
