The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett - Book Review

The Vanishing Half was published in June 2020 by Brit Bennett. She was inspired to write this book by the stories her mum would tell her about her southern past, especially about one where her mother mentioned that there were towns where people would intermarry so their children would get lighter. And from there, the idea was born and grew with each day. 

Although the storyline is fiction, this novel does touch on the truth about how American society was in the past and still is. The story starts its focus on a pair of twins Desiree and Stella; they are from a small town in the south called Mallard, so small that it is not even on the map. But the pair want adventure and to leave this place, so they escape, leaving their mum alone. Until one day, years later, Desiree comes back, but she is not alone; she has brought her daughter, Jude, as well. There’s a big difference between Desiree and her daughter - their skin tone. Both are black, but Desiree is light-skinned just like everyone else from this town, whereas Jude is dark-skinned. We then learn that Desiree and Stella have not seen each other for years, and they have lost touch. But Stella is no longer the girl she once was; she’s a woman who has managed to live in a white world as a white woman. Not only that, she has married a white man and had a white daughter, Kennedy, and none of them knows that she is actually not white.  As time goes by, their children (cousins) meet each other without knowing they are related. But, Kennedy has no idea that her mum is a twin, whereas Jude does.  The story commences studying the themes of passing, identity and race, and how each of them lives their lives differently from one another. 

I really enjoyed this book after one-third of it, but that is something I will go into detail soon. I loved the themes that Bennett explored, especially ‘passing’. Although some people feel we did not see the fear that Stella felt that made her continue to pass as white forever, I would actually disagree. I saw this through the dialogue from Stella’s point of view, she was so adamant to better her life that she thought the only way to do that was to be a white woman. And to be honest, in those times, she was right even though it shouldn't have been like that. Being able to pass as white gave her the opportunities to have jobs that she wouldn’t have if people saw her as a black woman.  I think we really saw Stella’s worry that she would be caught when a new neighbour arrived on the block and everyone was not happy because they were black. Stella had to act like them even though she knew the truth about herself.  On top of that, I like that Bennett also had a transmale character. As I have mentioned in my previous book review, when LGBTQ characters are included they tend to be gay or lesbian. Therefore, it is nice to see that people who identify as trans-male are being included in books as well. Not only that, but I loved how I figured it out; it was gradually brought up and didn’t stop the flow of the novel. 

However, as I mentioned before, I wasn’t really fond of the start, and I thought it was a slow start, so slow that I started it and then read other books before I went back to continuing this book. I believe the reason why it took me some time to get into this novel is because I knew that the daughters of Stella and Desiree would meet and I was waiting for it to happen. But that didn’t happen for some time as we were diving into the background of the twins instead. The moment we split to Jude’s point of view when she was on the bus going to college in California was when the book sparked my interest more because I knew what would soon happen. 

Overall, I adore reading this book due to how sad it is because some people actually did this to fit in a white society, and I am sure it is still happening now. On top of that, I loved the identity crisis theme. This was done through Stella passing white and Reece becoming more comfortable identifying as a man. I think the reason I connected to this could be the fact that my parents are also immigrants to the UK; although they are both white and I too am white, there is still the not knowing what culture to identify with, something that has occurred due to people around me when releasing I am not actually English. Therefore, I will be giving this book 4.5 stars.