Author : Brit Bennet
Genre : domestic fiction
Goodreads rating : 4.25
Blurb : From Goodreads
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.
What I felt about the book?
OK. First lemme summarise a bit of the plot
The Vanishing Half is the story of two sisters who are identical twins; they are not colored but are colored. The true color of a human being is the color of his mind; we can say this for comfort’s sake, but for Desiree and Stella, the issue of skin color is a bigger deal. Since they are light-skinned black sisters, things are way too complicated in their life. The plot of this story revolves around how the two sisters deal with the issue.
Nothing in life was working out in the way the sisters dreamed, and they were sure that things would never change if they keep staying in their hometown. So, they run away from home.
It’s so hard to figure out how human mind works. Even two persons with the same problems deal with it in two different ways.
It’s hard to deal with problems that are rooted deep in our minds. The issue of color was that haunting trouble in the life of Stella and Desiree. Although their appearances won’t easily disclose that they are colored, that fear always clouded their minds. The way the two sisters address the issue gave the feeling that it’s the dilemma of a single person’s mind.
Speaking of color….
No matter how well the society around us has progressed, skin color is still an issue; for some, it becomes their advantage and for others, it becomes the source of their inferiority complex. The skin color has done nothing wrong, it is the human mind that needs a cure. A person with black skin is not confident enough to acknowledge that, partly because of society and partly because of his mind.
Things are not always black or white….
Stella and Desiree were fair-skinned. They were not black in appearance, but they were black. We, humankind, are experts in finding fault in someone else. We not only care about the skin color but also the heredity to matters to us. Fun fact, we can be easily fooled when the subject matter is about heredity.
I loved the way the author addressed the issues of fair-skinned blacks through the story of the twin sisters; that is the best part of the novel.
How I felt reading the book…
I felt rather sleepy while reading the book; it’s not that the plot was boring or the language was difficult or something else. We all have that feeling sometimes, right? As a result, I never expected the story to leave an impression on my mind. Well, something quite its opposite happened. Once the story ended, I realized that I was arguing with myself as to what would have been my choice in such a circumstance.
To put it briefly, The Vanishing Half had a fascinating plot; it gave me a boring reading experience only to enlighten me at the end.
Now is the time to light up the stars..