A review by erinbarton
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

emotional reflective slow-paced

3.0

i appreciate the huge amount of detail into timeline and characterisation that brit bennett has put into this book but the pacing and writing style just wasn’t for me. i found the story to be quite uneventful.
the blurb asks “what will happen in the next generation when their daughters’ storylines intersect?” — actually, very little. this part of the story doesn’t happen until about 200 pages in, and then apart from an argument between them they’re just sort of friends for the rest of the book ??? the blurb just sort of hinted there’d be a lot more tension and consequences etc from stella’s secrets coming out but nothing really happened.

however, i can appreciate why other people have loved this book. i like that we got to see the story from desiree, stella, jude and kennedy‘s pov so we get to know each of the women. i also loved reese as a side character and appreciated the parallel’s between his hesitancy/fear of being outed and stella’s fear of her lies being found out.

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