The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett

The Vanishing Half tells an interesting story of twin sisters both white passing who choose very different paths in life and the aftermath of all these choices.

Stella is the silent twin who spent her childhood being spoken for by her sister. Smart and silent but had to drop out of school to help their mother. After running away with her sister to the city she one day disappears and decides to be white and spend the rest of her life living this lie and shunning any semblance of her past.

Desiree is the restless twin. She spent most of her childhood dreaming of leaving her hometown and going against everything it stood for. After running away with Stella and losing Stella in the city she ends up having a child with a dark-skinned man, having a daughter with him and later comes back to the hometown she ran from.

This story looks at how far these sisters can pull away from each other and live a whole life when it feels like half of them is missing.The novel covers many heavy themes: race, sexuality, family, love etc. This works well but sometimes also works against it because these topics are vast and sometimes the story gets lost in them.

Generally, the book is easy to read and fast-paced. I would recommend it. One shortfall is that so many characters are introduced on a high level that we end up feeling like we don't know much about the main characters since so much focus has been put on these other side characters.