The story movingly explores contemporary issues of race and gender identity and the costs incurred when abandoning one’s earlier life for a new, different persona. When Jude and Kennedy happen to meet as young women-in a way that manages not to feel contrived-it has major repercussions.īennett draws her characters with empathy while making their flaws very plain the story depicts a variety of relationships especially well and packs a punch with its emotional realness. After cutting herself off from her past, Stella, meanwhile, has successfully passed into white society and lives with her white husband and blonde daughter, Kennedy, in a wealthy LA neighborhood. By 1968, after an abusive marriage, Desiree returns to Mallard with her “blueblack” daughter, Jude, whose presence stands out and startles everyone in town. At sixteen, both girls flee their hometown for New Orleans-they have reasons-and their lives diverge not long after. They come of age in 1950s Mallard, Louisiana, a Black farming community too small for any map, and whose residents take pride in the lightness of their complexions.

Spanning over three decades, from the Jim Crow South through 1980s California, it centers on two sisters and their daughters, and how American society’s intense focus on skin color warps the natural course of their lives.ĭesiree and Stella Vignes are twins: identical, but not alike. I left the reading of this story feeling hopeful for the future.Brit Bennett’s second novel, a national bestseller, deserves all the attention it’s been getting. While there are negatives in everyone’s past, the characters move forward and work for a better life without succumbing to a general despair. There are moments of unbridled joy that are not sullied by an immediate negative experience. I enjoyed this title because it allows the characters to live their lives as they are – conflict, happiness and all. The story spans 40 years of the twins lives, and you’ll be kept on the edge of your seat wondering if they will come together again. The Vanishing Half shines in it’s depictions of everyday life and the ripples that occur in the lives of those connected to the twins. Jude - Desiree’s daughter, and Kennedy – Stella’s daughter, meet in California by happenstance and we follow their stories through school, their relationships (to each other and others) and their rich inner lives. Desiree meets, falls in love with a dark skin man, and has a dark-skinned daughter.

Stella chooses to pack up, leave everything she has ever known behind, and pass for white.

Reviews of the vanishing half