Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

63 reviews

bethsbookshelf's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Time to review THE BEST PIECE OF FICTION I'VE READ THIS YEAR!

Wow - I loved, loved, loved this book. 

Things I loved:

🪴 The writing!! The first thing that pulled me in was the writing. From the first page, I was hooked. From the first chapter, I was emotionally invested. As they say, the characters leaped off the page, and I felt like I was really living their lives with them. The writing is simple, yet rich, and has some stunning and beautiful details. I underlined so many quotes. For instance, "Now, this was comfort - a languid morning spent floating across a swimming pool, a two-story house with cabinets always filled with food, a chestful of toys for her daughter, a bookshelf that held an entire encyclopedia set. This was comfort, no longer wanting anything." 
🪴 Speaking of the characters, they were vivid and dimensional and complex and somehow yet, lovable. I understood all of their reasoning and decisions; their motivations and traumas were so thorough. I loved how they all contrasted each other and complemented each other at the same time. The entire cast was so great, even the minor side characters. I could seriously read a whole series about each character.
🪴 The sisterhood relationship between Desiree and Stella. They were polar opposites, but not in a way that felt lazy or stereotypical. One was loud, one was quiet, but they changed and shifted as time moved along. Their relationship was codependent yet completely independent at the same time. They longed for each other and needed each other but also required space from one another to grow. Despite them being apart for most of the book, as a reader, you feel like you're reading about them side by side. The author so fluidly flipped between the two in a way that felt so natural yet so fitting to the story.
🪴 The exploration and portrayal of race. This book exposes both race and what it means to be a victim of it. But it also exposes colourism within the Black community and how people treat each other depending on the various skin tones. Stella and Desiree are both light-skinned Black women with the possibility to pass as white. Stella does, but Desiree doesn't. I can understand both women. One wants to escape racism and live a privileged life; the other wants to be true to herself. Both are valid, and it's racism's fault that this difficult choice exists in the first place. At the end of the day, identity is something we can control slightly, but our roots and true selves will always squeeze through the cracks our masks leave behind.
🪴 The theme of motherhood. Stella and Desiree aren't perfect mothers, but the theme of nature vs. nurture is so poignant yet subtle. I really liked taking notes on this throughout and noticing little things the author did to portray this.

I do think everyone will love something about this book. I hope you pick it up! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Classism, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Transphobia

vasha's review against another edition

mysterious relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book started out not bad; the first few chapters are a depiction of the 1950s/1960s in Mallard, a very small Louisiana town inhabited by Black people who are obsessed with light skin; they introduce Desiree and Stella, twin sisters whose identities are tangled up in each other. The writing style is pleasant and unobtrusive and the story keeps moving forward. Desiree  is the protagonist of the first section, and she makes for a pretty passive one. I wish we'd seen more of her interactions with her daughter Jude (she shocked Mallard by bringing home a very dark child); that would've been about the most interesting thing about her. Her boyfriend, a traveling bounty hunter, is possibly my favorite character in the book, though, and there are some nice bits about their cautious relationship and Jude's ambiguity about accepting him. Stella, who decides to become white and hide her origins, comes to the fore later in the book; she's very unpleasant, but at least compelling to read about!

As the book went on, I liked it less and less. It's not much of a work of historical fiction: the author only evokes the most obvious, familiar cultural touchstones in the journey from the 1950s to the 1980s. And some things struck me as anachronistic. For example, some young people in the 1980s are shown unselfconsciously using the word "Negro." They were born about the same time as me; the author's twenty years younger, so let me correct her: that word was already antediluvian in the 80s. The cast of supporting characters, too, is stock, as are details of the life of a bored housewife or of a college student (frankly, the latter is completely unbelievable). 

Now, the one thing that bugged the holy hell out of me: the depiction of Jude's boyfriend Reese, who's a trans man. There is practically not one page he appears on, where him being trans, and things about his transition, aren't mentioned, and everything he's depicted doing is in relation to that. I eventually started a "drinking game": oh, Jude's going to apartment-hunt with Reese, or talk to him about her mother, or whatever; will the author bring up Reese's surgeries, scars, etc.? Yup.... This is objectivization, maybe fetishization, whatever, not good. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Sexism, Death of parent, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Murder, Racial slurs, Racism, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Grief, Alcohol, and Cursing

Minor: Deadnaming

audreychu's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Racism, Physical abuse, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Sexual assault, Torture, and Sexism

jlaz_13's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Racial slurs, Abandonment, and Sexual assault

Minor: Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, Murder, Hate crime, Dementia, and Death of parent

maess's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Racial slurs, Dementia, Physical abuse, Racism, Classism, Death of parent, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence

caitlinderocker's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dementia, Domestic abuse, Dysphoria, Grief, Hate crime, Medical content, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Racism, Racial slurs, Classism, Death of parent, Sexism, Rape, Sexual assault, Abandonment, Bullying, Child abuse, and Cultural appropriation

morganperks's review against another edition

dark emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Body shaming, Racial slurs, Homophobia, Classism, Murder, Death of parent, Grief, Medical content, Deadnaming, Dementia, Gaslighting, Racism, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, and Hate crime

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Sexual assault, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Child abuse, Violence, Toxic relationship, and Sexual content

noxygens's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism

Moderate: Bullying, Death of parent, Dementia, Classism, and Death

Minor: Xenophobia, Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, and Toxic relationship

quinn12_'s review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, Grief, Violence, Dementia, Racism, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, Dysphoria, Murder, Racial slurs, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Death of parent, Medical content, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Sexism, Rape, and Terminal illness

eloisey's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional inspiring slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I guess this just wasn’t for me. 

Although I thought the actual premise was really interesting, the execution of it was not what I expected at all. Sometimes the writing was not clear and timelines were not consistent between chapters. 
For example, you learn so much about Stella through the middle of the book but I would have preferred a more “compare and contrast” approach, with the other twin woven through this, instead of a big block of just Stella (who also happens to be the more boring 3rd person narrator imo) and then it goes more in depth about their daughters and their daughters boyfriends too. I felt like it should have kept it more simple, just about the twins more so than their children and boyfriends. Some parts of this felt more like a YA novel to me. 
All in all I did finish it and didn’t mind reading it too badly, just had to push myself to sometimes.

TLDR: Great premise but slower pacing and different timelines made it a bit of a slog. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Hate crime, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Sexual assault and Domestic abuse