THE VANISHING HALF: Sunday Times Bestseller Paperback – 2 June 2020

Two colored twins leave town. One returns with a daughter black as night. The part where I finally enter the story is when the Early Jones flashback begins, one twin's summer crush. The Vanishing Half is not depressing or bleak. Just the treatment I want to read.As the story proceeds the twins lives superficially seem to go on in opposite trajectories. Desiree does what Stella would've done, and vice versa. Later we find out why.The plot moves on to the next generation, their daughters, and the crossed paths. I cannot put the book down at this point. I was trying hard to like it in the first 10 pages, but now I am smitten. Jude, Désirée's daughter has serious body image issues induced by the town of Mallard and I am relating with her keenly. I still feel the effect of my own issues run my life.So I am happy to read how Jude finds love and learns to live beyond the prejudice that will always follow her throughout the town atleast.In contrast, Stella is a character you don't feel much sympathy for, not when this country where I live, will deal with the legacy of colorism for decades still. Yet, the plot is an unputdownable study of internalized hate and discrimination at the point.There is a lot I loved about the book, most of all that I breezed through it within the day. I think it is rereadworthy, the highest praise I can bestow a book. Someone peaks early, someone grows in a sustained manner throughout and someone else finds their calling much later. It is oddly hopeful.I couldn't have imagined that someone could do so much with a story of a black woman passing for white. I don't know if we are supposed to sympathize with Stella, the twin who does this. If that was Bennett's intention, it's not worked.

The Vanishing Half starts off in the fictional town of Mallard, which was built in 1848 by a person with mixed parentage for “men like him, who would never be accepted as white but refused to be treated as blacks”. Even as his black mother keeps him in the sun to darken his skin, he eventually marries a woman with lighter skin than even his own, hoping that future generations get lighter and lighter, “like a cup of coffee being steadily diluted with cream”, as Bennett puts it. This – the tussle between wanting to pass as white, for that meant to pass as free, and the fierce need to own and protect one’s racial identity – then forms the core of this novel.Desiree and Stella are twin sisters and descendants of Mallard’s founder, physically identical but as different as chalk and cheese. Desiree is the more adventurous and rebellious of the two while Stella is the staider, and they run away from home at the age of sixteen – Desiree because she hates the pretentious town where people are “colorstruck” and Stella simply because she wants a better life. And as fate would have it, and due to individual choices that the sisters make, Desiree returns home while Stella passes as white and leads a life filled with lies.The story spans about 40 years and touches upon three generations, with intertwining stories, and is filled with an interesting and well-fleshed out supporting cast – Early Jones, who had a childhood crush on Desiree but could not express it due to his color and who eventually becomes her main pillar of support, Desiree’s dark-skinned daughter Jude, who like her mother, is unforgiving of people who refuse to recognize their heritage, her boyfriend Reese who has been grappling with issues related to his sexuality and Stella’s daughter Kennedy, a Californian blonde, with a chequered relationship with her mother.The contrast between Desiree and Stella is one of the most interesting aspects of the book, and also likely to be one of the most debated topics for any reading club. Ostensibly, the portrayal of Desiree seems more sympathetic and that of Stella seems somewhat cruel. But the story gradually reveals several layers to their characters. For example, it is unclear whether Desiree’s marriage to dark-skinned Sam is driven purely by love or to an extent by her hatred of what Mallard stood for and Stella’s behavior is partly explained by the racial and sexual violence witness by her during her childhood and teen years.Finally, Bennett’s writing is top-notch – simple yet evocative. At one point, Stella, who spends nearly her entire life hiding things from everyone around her, notices her husband’s arousal and feels embarrassed for him as “she could think of nothing more horrifying than not being able to hide what she wanted” and metaphors such as these add to the reading pleasure!Pros: Interesting plot, well-defined characters, beautiful writingCons: None really, unless this genre does not appeal to one

One of the best thing about this book is it's automatically taken you to the sisters emotional sentiments, like how that twin sisters splited apart because to look on their future,the author narrated the story of those twin sisters early life was excellent. other than that this book will feel like so bored and waiting for you to finish this book as much as possible.....may be some one will find so interesting about this book but for me it's not....

I read this book under peer pressure 😂😂..so much good I had heard about this book that I just had to read it....it was just a matter of when..Well the vanishing half is about a set of black twins who look white...they run away from home to start a new life...over time one of the twins decides to live life as white while other returns home with her black daughter back to her old life...there are a lot of characters...with small parts to play...much like life itself...we meet pple, share a few memories and move on...I felt this book was exactly that...a collection of memories of the charactersIt's one of those stories which leave u in thought long after you finish the book...it sticks to u...make you wonder...what happened after...there is no end to it...it's much like a soap opera...not in a bad way...just...the way in which the book is structured...it's not supposed to end anywhere... eventually the author stops writing..It left me wondering how discrimination exists in all societies...indians have the caste system...the religion to divide us...the others have colour based discrimination...it's oppressing..how it came to be? Was it always meant to be so rigid and so cruel?...why even after so many years..this discrimination refuses to leave us? Why don't we feel shame in cruelty?...It's left me thoughtful...that's what a good book does..is it not?? So it's a 4/5... It's NOT an entertaining book..it's enlightening...go for it if u r in the mood to think.

An interesting read that touchs on race, gender identity and acceptance but doest go too deep into anything. Engaging for sure.

So relatable. It is a slice of life. The end was a bit abrupt for my liking. A worthy read.

I moved work meetings around to read this book, I truly could not put it down.Every great novel should force you out of your comfort zone, introduce you to new worlds and make you pause to think and assess. The Vanishing Half manages this, it feels, with ease. Brit Bennett achieved this with The Mothers too (which I also loved and is a MUST-read), but here the cast, the setting and the timeline are even more expansive. Thus the skill on display, even more impressive.This is a novel that weaves the themes of history, memory and identity. It encourages us to put aside simplified notions of racial dynamics, and as a mixed-race woman, I found myself deeply interrogating my own thoughts, beliefs and experiences. This is not, though, only a novel about race and it would be disingenuous to believe so. This is a journey through family ties, belonging and loss; of individuals, couples, communities. Seamlessly bringing together these myriad threads is the sign of a masterful writer.Brit writes with unpretentious flair, in a way that envelopes you softly, almost as though you're hearing your mum telling you the story as her mum told it to her. No word is wasted, no sentence is filler, no dialogue is superfluous. Everything serves its purpose exquisitely and is imbibed with feeling.This novel spans the full emotional spectrum, it brought me moments of sadness, anger, and tender delight, all of which I am truly grateful for. I needed this novel right now - and I believe many of us do. Please, do not hesitate to purchase this book.

This is clearly a case off false advertising. I expected the book to convey a story on the dynamics identical twins raised in the racist south. THIS WAS NOT THE CORE OF THE BOOK. Instead it focused on the dynamics of the LGBTQ community. I have absolutely no interest in such matters. Thoroughly disappointed.

The first three quarters of the book are excellent. They tell of the lives of twin sisters, Desiree and Stella, who were born in the fictional Louisiana town of Mallard, where the population of African-Americans were all light-skinned and looked down on dark skinned people.This had not prevented whites from a neighbouring town from lynching their father for an imagined racial transgression.In 1964 Desiree and Stella ran way to St Louis. But they soon went their separate ways. Stella, traumatized by having seen her father lynched, had decided to pass as white. She had taken a job in St Louis. Her employer, a wealthy white banker called Blake Sanders had taken a liking to her, and she to him; and when he was moved to Boston and asked her to go with him, she had agreed, and had simply walked out on Desiree without telling her where she had gone. There she married him and bore him a white daughter, Kennedy. Neither Blake nor Kennedy knew that she was not white. Later they moved to Los Angeles.For years Stella had no contact with Desiree. She was always terrified that she would be found out, and avoided any contact with black people. The exception was her friendship for a while with Loretta Walker, a black woman who lived in the house opposite hers; but this ended when Kennedy, playing with Loretta’s daughter Cindy, made a racist comment to Cindy.Desiree had gone to Washington D.C, and married a black man, Sam Winston, and bore him a black daughter, Jude. But Sam was violent towards Desiree, and she and Jude left him and returned to Mallard in 1968.In 1982 Jude was living in Los Angeles with Reese Carter, a transgender man with whom, sharing his bed, she has an affaire of sorts, and with Barry, who performs as a drag queen twice a month. Reese and Barry, like Stella, were passing for something they were not.One day, Jude thought she had seen Stella, the lookalike of her mother; and she also met Kennedy.Kennedy had become a rebel, had dropped out school, and against her mother’s wishes, had taken up acting in a crummy play in a crummy theatre. Jude took a job as a dogsbody at the theatre in order to see more of her cousin and in the hope of meeting Stella. On the last night of the show she did meet Stella, and introduced herself to her as Desiree’s daughter. Stella froze, then walked away. Angrily, Jude told Kennedy that their mothers were twins, and that Stella had been lying to Kennedy all her life.The secret was out: Stella knew she had been rumbled, and Kennedy knew the truth.I found the remaining quarter of the book, dealing in part with the consequences of this situation, very confusing. Hence only three stars, when so much of the book deserves five.

This book is about choices and circumstance. It tells the story of twin girls growing up in the segregated South. They live in a town that is colorstruck inhabited by light skinned black people. Both sisters, in their own way, rebel against the strictures of the town They run away as teenagers and wind up rebelling in very different fashions. One sister marries an extremely dark skinned man and has a dark skinned daughter. The other sister passes for white and lives a privileged life. Their stories...and the backstories of their forebears is told over a span of almost forty years, beginning in the 1950s. The novel has an arresting narrative and focuses on the choices people make, the secrets they hold and the consequences that unfold from this dynamic.

4.75*What an amazing journey I’ve been on. Not sightseeing, more like “eye opening” moments.The Vanishing Half will not only enthrall you it will enlighten you.Twins. One skin colour lighter than the the other. Living in a small village named Mallard.Based around 1950’s and spanning down to 1990’s.Just why did these identical twins get split up when running away?What made them run?How did one twins life take a course so far in type to their peer?One sister living a totally black persons life while the other “passing” for white and whites privilegies.There is racism, there is hate.The sisters had their school life halted due to a difference in everyday life, they’re mama needed them to work, to bring in money.Running took the sisters on totally different paths.One having different relationships and experiences.The other marrying a white man who thought he had married a white woman.Both these sisters went on to have a daughter of their own.There are lots and lots of moments in this story I’d like to share, but, I’d prefer you to experience them whilst reading this book yourself.I remember the times when cemeteries were split. Deceased white people on one part of the land and black diseased on the other. The upkeep of the graves were done on the white side, but not the black.It touches on history here.But the reunion of the sisters I would have loved more emotional, and to see what happened if here husband learnt of the truth or not that she was indeed black.I’d love a book 2 on this. Following through the next generation.I’ve not read The Mothers by this author but I’m looking straight at it on my bookshelf so I’m definitely going to be reading that before 2020 has ended.