A review by thisreadingcorner
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

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

5.0

The Vignes twins, Desiree and Stella steal off in the middle of the night from Mallard to New Orleans, cutting off all contact to their family and community for years. When they resurface, Desiree has broken Mallard “rules” by marrying and having a child with a dark-skinned man, and Stella has become a white woman.

In multiple POVs that span almost thirty years, Bennett compares the fates of these two women through their children, lovers, careers, and shared memories. The obvious questions are answered: How did Stella come to be white? How could Desiree abandon the sole commandment of her hometown? In the process, new ones develop: Is blood enough to make two people family? What makes an identity honest? Can you love someone you don’t truly know?

In so many ways Desiree and Stella are alike, clinging to the narratives they established as traumatized teens and establishing boundaries that prevent those closest to them from realizing how tenuous a grip they have on the lives they’ve molded. There is no overt effort to make any of them less culpable for their decisions, and I appreciate that. The rapid rise and fall of Loretta made me so angry I had to put the book down, and it would have cheapened her family’s pain to ignore the realities of Stella’s chosen whiteness in that moment.

The romantic subplots are stunning: Desiree’s hand on Early’s neck, Early leaning against the doorframe of Lou’s week after week over decades, Jude and Reese locking eyes across a dark room, Reese’s winter apology at Jude’s doorstep, even the absurdity of Frantz casting Kennedy in his desired fetishization with no clue of the irony.

The intimacy of the book isn’t just in the romantic thought. It’s in the juxtaposition of daily life and world crises, the Barry of it all, the landscape narration, the briefly detailed long distance phone calls between two distant cousins. Every word is purposeful and beautiful.
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