Book: The Vanishing Half
Author: Brit Bennett
Pages: 352
This is my 22nd read for the year
This is the story of the Vignes twins. These girls grew up in a small town in the south, but ran away from home at the age of 16. One twin returns year later with a young daughter. The other never returns, and actually lives her life as a white woman in an affluent neighborhood in California.
Crossing a large span of these girl's lives, and the lives of their daughters, we see the tug of their roots come back to haunt them. Learning what shapes and influences people's decisions and expectations. How trying to "reinvent" yourself does actually mean.
This was a pretty good book. I enjoyed getting involved in the long span of time that passes in the book, and how the sisters and their families evolved over all of those decades. However, I do wish the books spent more time on the sisters than their daughters. It was evently dispersed acrossed the twins and their two daughters, but I wanted to get more involved with the twin sisters and their lives more than their children's lives.
Also - the ending wasn't strong. It seemed to wrap up so quickly after spending so much time with a large timeline in the book. It left me wanting.
The book overall tackeled so many important issues, racism: colorism, transgender issues, domestic abuse, self hate, and that needs to be commended. I just wish the book would have done maybe two characters and developed them more than try to broaden 4 characters over the 350 pages.
Stars: 3 1/2
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