The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
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5/5 Stars! I thoroughly enjoyed The Vanishing Half and reading about Desiree and Stella’s upbringing and their perspectives on passing or not. Also, the lives of Jude and her own experiences with racism and essentially lying about her own family, too, because of the darker color of her skin, as well as Kennedy and not knowing who she truly is. The author did a great job at showing how Desiree & Stella’s past have had an impact on their daughters’ lives. The book jumped around a little, but it wasn’t bad or anything to the point where I couldn’t understand. I normally don’t read historical fiction because it's usually the same type of WW2 love stories or slavery tellings, but this book was excellent! The concept of passing both interests and saddens me at the same time, and I would like to learn more about the reasoning behind why Blacks would choose to pass or not. The Vanishing Half was thought-provoking and bittersweet, and I highly recommend it!
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Book Review
After reading The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet, I was overall impressed with the coverage the author showed of everyone’s life. The story is told in the third person perspective and switches between times in multiple characters’ lives. At first, I was a bit confused but as I continued to read, things started to come together. The author included a background for most characters so it was less challenging to understand their perspective. These insights into their lives have a massive contribution to the plot of the story. They add dramatic and suspenseful effects. The literary devices like diction, syntax, and detail further added to these effects. Though I felt that the story moved very slowly and that the author spent too much time switching between characters before getting to the peak, the long-awaited climax helped build up suspense and the urge to continue reading. The story starts out with Desiree returning to her hometown, giving some information about the twins' past and why they left. The story then continues to switch between the lives of Desiree, Stella, and their daughters, Jude and Kennedy. When the author introduces a new character, I think they did a good job giving them a brief background and their importance to the story, for example, Early and Reese. These are two love interests in the story and are there as a companion to Desiree and Jude in their separate lives. I felt that the transition between the characters and the change in time happened too inconsistently and I sometimes found myself lost. For instance, when the author shifted perspectives between Jude and Kennedy. The story being told in a third-person perspective gave readers a chance to acknowledge each character’s thoughts and feelings. From a very young age, The twins experienced something very traumatic that had a major impact on their lives. The literary devices used create an obvious difference between the twins’ lives and add to the theme of the story. Desiree chooses to return to her censorious hometown and embrace the darker shade of her daughter’s skin while Stella pretends to be something she’s not and lives her life as a lie. I enjoyed reading the parallel storylines the author included and thought they added to the dramatic effect of the overall story. In conclusion, I found the book interesting. Everyone in the story had their own struggles and it made me acknowledge more all the things I am grateful for. Though both of the twins experienced trauma and loss, they were both able to overcome it and find love.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
A Very Well Executed, Interesting Novel
After reading The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet I was thoroughly impressed by the author's writing skills and style, use of literary devices, and overall storytelling abilities. This impactful story covers several characters and expresses the growth and change they experienced throughout their lifetime. Bennet successfully gave background and descriptive details about each character through her advanced use of diction which helps readers shape opinions of their own and get a sense of familiarity with the main characters. This story starts with light-skinned twin girls who run away from home at a very young age to create lives of their own, away from their small hometown of Mallard. This creates an interesting hook and leaves the reader wanting to know more. They then are separated when Stella, one of the Vignes's twins, attempts to pass as white, leaving the reader questioning and intrigued. This novel develops throughout each twin's lifetime and gives the reader insight into their different lives. Bennet also provides a narrative behind Stella’s daughter, Kennedy, and Desiree, the other twin's daughter, Jude. This story provides a detailed span of each twin's lifetime, although, I feel the author switches periods and perspectives too frequently and unsmoothly. Throughout certain parts of the novel, the switch from different points of view or ages becomes confusing. With this being said, this is one thing from the novel that could have been more functional to receive a better understanding from readers. However, Bennet does a wonderful job describing in depth each character throughout different times in their life starting from the Vignes twins at only 16 years old, to when they are adults with their children all grown up. Bennet can do this by her sufficent use of syntax and imagery which also contributes to the story's theme. After learning so much about each character and their life the theme of the story is quite evident that the past can have an everlasting effect on a person's choices, expectations, and desires. This can be shown through how Stella struggles to live each day of her life a lie, knowing her true past, as well as even though Desiree originally ran away from home she knew she couldn’t escape her past and eventually ended up moving back to Mallard. This is then shown to be true with each of their daughters; Jude and Kennedy’s upbringings led to them developing differently as a person, and having different takes and outlooks on life. Once the twins' lives began to emerge through the meeting of their daughters, and later on the reuniting of Desiree and Stella, I feel Bennet did not successfully wrap up the story because Stella left abruptly once again, and neither truly got closure and nothing was resolved. With this being said, I feel the entire buildup of the book storyline was very anticlimactic in the end. Lastly, Bennet provided themes of race, identity, and family which were thoroughly explored throughout the novel. In conclusion, The Vanishing Half although I feel could have ended differently, was a well-thought-out, impressively executed story that I would give a 6.5/10 rating and is a book I would recommend to others.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
What a page turner!
What a trip this book was! It was such a page turner, filled with unexpected twists, but also some wild coincidences. It was during some of the more serendipitous moments that I had to rely on my suspension of disbelief. But it didn't take much, because the writing was excellent. I've heard about black people historically passing as white, but to read about the intricacies involved in these situations was really fascinating. So many characters were affected by the web of lies necessary for Stella to continue her secret life, and it was just something I'd never thought of before. Honestly, it made me angry that anyone would have to take such drastic measures to escape racism. My heart broke for everyone involved because there were solid reasons for the path Stella chose, but so much heartache for the family.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Great Read
I just love this book. From the story line to the way it is written, just 10s across the board. I loved how the story followed the lives of these 4 women who while are all completely different people, share a lot in common.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Themes and quotes
Four major themes of the book are race, identity, family, and the complexities of self-perception. Some notable quotes from the book include: "She thought of the years she'd spent wanting, how they stretched behind her like a long corridor, how she'd been so sure that the wanting would end." "Maybe that was what it was like to be a twin, to always have someone who felt your absence before you felt it yourself." "We all have secret selves, selves we keep hidden." "The story of our lives is never just our own." "We all have a past. We all carry something with us."
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Awesome writing and engrossing story
Brit Bennett is an amazing author. She constructs complex stories and only reveals them bit by bit to you. "The Vanishing Half" is one of those books that you can hardly put down, because you just want to figure out how it all comes together in the end! I love the characters, I love the alternating perspectives, and I love how Bennett presents the complicated relationship people have with their race when faced with different situations.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Interesting
This book was written in a way to speak on the perspective of a white passing individual to improve their life. I enjoyed it.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com