Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - The Vanishing Half

Very well written story, couldn't stop listening.

Really felt for each of the characters. I think it's interesting to think of how we each have parts of ourselves we probably would like to leave behind sometimes. It's in the way we hide in the grocery store when we see someone from high school. Always feeling like parts of our past are secrets we have to try and hide or just don't want to confront. Not a perfect comparison as we're probably not hiding such big secrets. There's also the reminder that there are people who still want and love us even for the parts we would like to discard.

I did feel there was some disjointed story telling towards the end in regard to Jude's relationship. Some of the timeline presented felt contradictory.

Also, I've been really into books with strong themes of family. Good families, bad families, estranged families, close families... this has a little bit of all of that.

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oliviapincin's review

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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emjames22's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

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juls0899's review against another edition

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emotional reflective tense 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

5.0

Beautifully written. I love the way each character's story blends together, how they're all intertwined even when they're trying so hard not to be.

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bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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

5.0

I was pulled in right away! Its been a long time that a foreword has made me say “oh this is going to be a great book” 💜

A beautiful story that I didn’t want to put down but also wanted to take my time with it! I marked a lot of passages with quotes that struck me or made me think.

Chapters could be a little long for my taste but I didn’t always mind it. I was intrigued and captivated by the well-developed, complex characters! I especially enjoyed the switching POVs and spanning across years/decades to follow the twins and the family. There were times I hated characters and other times I sympathized with them.

I’ve never read a book quite like this and I’ll definitely be reading more from Brit Bennett!

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