The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

The Vignes 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, including their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. Across the country, the other secretly passes for a white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, although separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen when their own daughters’ stories intersect? 

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This book was an amazing read. The words reached deep and pulled me into the story completely. Britt Bennett’s masterful translation of life to page left me in awe. Not the typical book I would choose, contemporary isn’t my absolute favourite, but my friend chose it for her bookclub pick and I’m so glad she did (see this is why book clubs are good, we read things we typically wouldn’t). This book has been widely toted on social media and was one of the most popular books circulating this year and for very good reason. This book had a lot of lessons and a lot of real and ugly truths that I’m sure many of us could relate to in one way or another. Not only a book focused on classism, racism, sexism, transphobia, and homophobia and how hard it is to struggle through the world when you weren’t born a privileged straight white person, but it focuses on the hardships of family, the struggles of friendship, and the ultimate base need to make something of yourself in this cold, cruel world. I think it’s a book everyone could enjoy, the writing was transcendent and the topics were extremely relevant.

Honestly I’m having a hard time reviewing this book without spoilers. There was just so much that lit a fire under me that I want to gush about but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who has yet to read it. My favourite thing about this book was the alternating stories. We’re lead to believe this book will be all about the two sisters but really it’s mainly about Desiree and her daughter Jude. Desiree spent her early childhood braving the small minded town with her literal other half, her twin, Stella. When one day it gets to be too much and both girls run away, Desiree’s life is forever changed. Instead of escaping like she’d always dreamed she finds herself in an abusive relationship and her only solace is to run home, bringing her daughter with her. On the other half of the coin, Stella, who never really dreamed of escape ends up “passing” for white and living an entirely new life, leaving her family behind yet never quite belonging even to this new world. Her relationship with her daughter is fraught from the beginning. The parallels between the two mother/daughter relationships was fascinating to see. You see your mother a certain way but you didn’t know the person she was before she was “Mom”, so you never really quite know her. This book dug into that, and how that not knowing could reflect upon that special relationship in different ways: Desiree and Jude got along, they understood there were secrets there but they still loved one another despite their very different lives, Stella and her daughter Kennedy, however, cannot get past the secrets kept and trust is a non existent entity in their relationship, this is something they struggle with their entire lives. I loved how Bennett dug into the different aspects of these two very different families that branched off from one single set of twins. 

I also loved the different era’s we see of this family. We start with one of the Vignes twins returning to Mallord and the whole town talking about what must have happened to the other one. Then we get to see the world from Desiree’s eyes, her desperation that lead her back to the place she least wanted to be. Then we begin to bounce around, from Desiree’s youth and what lead her to run away, to her daughters future, to Stella’s story, and why she escaped Mallord and why she ran so fast and far away from even her closest family member, and then onto her own daughters troubled youth. We heard each part of the story exactly when it most made sense to hear it. Sometimes jumping around in different decades and points of view can make a story extremely complicated and hard to follow but in this book it was effortless.

The small things I didn’t really like in this book are more of a critique of plot point than of the actual writing. The relationship between the two cousins, Kennedy and Jude, is one thing I can’t stop dwelling on. I feel like there  was so much potential there and all we got was tiny snippets. I also felt like Desiree’s story was kind of an anti-climax. I wanted so much for her and I don’t feel as if she got what she deserved. There was a lot of potential there as well. But obviously the author chose those life paths for these characters for a reason and I respect that. It was an eye opening journey through the lives of these four women. 

I highly recommend this book. Pick it for your bookclub, buddy read it with a friend, join online chats about it, there is so much to unpack here. This is a book full of depth and it is a great read if you’re looking for a story that will make you think. I’m giving it 5 stars.  I originally rated it 4 stars on Goodreads but the more I think about this story the more I realize how much I enjoyed it and every time I revisit some of my favourite passages I think again about how brilliant the writing was. 5 stars.