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. Ten 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. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' story lines intersect?
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional …
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. Ten 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. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' story lines intersect?
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.
The book was engaging and the characters (mostly) well-developed. I felt that Part 5 dragged, though, which is one reason I couldn't give it five stars. I think the book should have ended sooner.
The narration was brilliant.
The book was engaging and the characters (mostly) well-developed. I felt that Part 5 dragged, though, which is one reason I couldn't give it five stars. I think the book should have ended sooner.
Start with two very light skinned African American twin girls from a small town in Louisiana, a father killed in a lynching, a very dark skinned African American man who works for the FBI in the time of J. Edgar Hoover, a bounty hunter, the Yale educated son of a wealthy banker, an aspiring actress trying to find herself, a young African American woman from a poor family going to medical school, a transgender African American male, transvestites seeing their friends die during the early days of AIDS.
Add masterful writing and mix well. You end up with a compelling novel that will challenge how you think about the people you encounter. What are the stories of the people around you? How can you learn from being part of a more complicated diverse world.
Read this book.
Start with two very light skinned African American twin girls from a small town in Louisiana, a father killed in a lynching, a very dark skinned African American man who works for the FBI in the time of J. Edgar Hoover, a bounty hunter, the Yale educated son of a wealthy banker, an aspiring actress trying to find herself, a young African American woman from a poor family going to medical school, a transgender African American male, transvestites seeing their friends die during the early days of AIDS.
Add masterful writing and mix well. You end up with a compelling novel that will challenge how you think about the people you encounter. What are the stories of the people around you? How can you learn from being part of a more complicated diverse world.
I know this is wildly popular. It just didn't do it for me. The book is too long to have insufficiently developed characters and very little story movement.
I know this is wildly popular. It just didn't do it for me. The book is too long to have insufficiently developed characters and very little story movement.
