---
product_id: 402654017
title: "The Vanishing Half: A Novel"
price: "€ 23.01"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 7
url: https://www.desertcart.it/products/402654017-the-vanishing-half-a-novel
store_origin: IT
region: Italy
---

# The Vanishing Half: A Novel

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- **What is this?** The Vanishing Half: A Novel
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## Description

desertcart.com: The Vanishing Half: A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel): 9780525536963: Bennett, Brit: Books

Review: Believe the hype! Wonderful, though provoking, highly entertaining! - “The hardest part about becoming someone else was deciding to. The rest was only logistics.” THE VANISHING HALF by Brit Bennett is one of the most buzzed about bestsellers of 2020 and let me just say it lived up to the hype! Without a doubt this is one of my most entertaining, unputdownable books I’ve read in a long time! Brilliant, thought provoking, heartbreaking; THE VANISHING HALF has it all! This multigenerational family saga takes place from the 1940s to the 1990s and centers on identical twin sisters Stella and Desiree Vignes. Though inseparable growing up, the Vignes twin’s lives sharply diverged after they ran away from their small, Southern Black community as teenagers. Estranged from each other, one twin returns home as an adult while the other secretly lives her life as a white woman. Though living completely separate and different lives, fate forces the twins and their families together. THE VANISHING HALF asks the question: what happens to those who choose to vanish and to those who are left behind? THE VANISHING HALF examines racial identity, colorism, trauma, reinvention, and above all the concept of “passing.” Bennett mainly explores the effects of racial passing and how a black woman passing as white simultaneously overcomes the barriers of race and reinforces them. Not only is racial passing discussed but we also see how passing can occur with gender and socioeconomic class. With masterful storytelling and exceptional character development, Bennett skillfully manages time jumps, shifts in narrative perspective, and multiple complex plot threads. Though there is a reliance on coincidence, I found the story totally engrossing and an overall fantastic read! If for some reason you have not read THE VANISHING HALF, what are you doing? Trust me, you will not regret reading this one! Plus, HBO is adapting it into a limited series… need I say more?! Without a doubt THE VANISHING HALF is a must-read book that I think every person would not only benefit from reading but highly enjoy! Follow my Instagram for more book reviews and fun book content: @BookyNooky
Review: The Vanishing Half book review - After reading The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet, I was overall impressed with the coverage the author showed of everyone’s life. The story is told in the third person perspective and switches between times in multiple characters’ lives. At first, I was a bit confused but as I continued to read, things started to come together. The author included a background for most characters so it was less challenging to understand their perspective. These insights into their lives have a massive contribution to the plot of the story. They add dramatic and suspenseful effects. The literary devices like diction, syntax, and detail further added to these effects. Though I felt that the story moved very slowly and that the author spent too much time switching between characters before getting to the peak, the long-awaited climax helped build up suspense and the urge to continue reading. The story starts out with Desiree returning to her hometown, giving some information about the twins' past and why they left. The story then continues to switch between the lives of Desiree, Stella, and their daughters, Jude and Kennedy. When the author introduces a new character, I think they did a good job giving them a brief background and their importance to the story, for example, Early and Reese. These are two love interests in the story and are there as a companion to Desiree and Jude in their separate lives. I felt that the transition between the characters and the change in time happened too inconsistently and I sometimes found myself lost. For instance, when the author shifted perspectives between Jude and Kennedy. The story being told in a third-person perspective gave readers a chance to acknowledge each character’s thoughts and feelings. From a very young age, The twins experienced something very traumatic that had a major impact on their lives. The literary devices used create an obvious difference between the twins’ lives and add to the theme of the story. Desiree chooses to return to her censorious hometown and embrace the darker shade of her daughter’s skin while Stella pretends to be something she’s not and lives her life as a lie. I enjoyed reading the parallel storylines the author included and thought they added to the dramatic effect of the overall story. In conclusion, I found the book interesting. Everyone in the story had their own struggles and it made me acknowledge more all the things I am grateful for. Though both of the twins experienced trauma and loss, they were both able to overcome it and find love.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #5,200 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #80 in Black & African American Women's Fiction (Books) #264 in Literary Fiction (Books) #366 in Women's Domestic Life Fiction |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars (128,035) |
| Dimensions  | 5.13 x 1.08 x 7.93 inches |
| Edition  | Reprint |
| ISBN-10  | 0525536965 |
| ISBN-13  | 978-0525536963 |
| Item Weight  | 2.31 pounds |
| Language  | English |
| Print length  | 400 pages |
| Publication date  | February 1, 2022 |
| Publisher  | Riverhead Books |

## Images

![The Vanishing Half: A Novel - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71AK2394CFL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Believe the hype! Wonderful, though provoking, highly entertaining!
*by B***Y on October 30, 2020*

“The hardest part about becoming someone else was deciding to. The rest was only logistics.” THE VANISHING HALF by Brit Bennett is one of the most buzzed about bestsellers of 2020 and let me just say it lived up to the hype! Without a doubt this is one of my most entertaining, unputdownable books I’ve read in a long time! Brilliant, thought provoking, heartbreaking; THE VANISHING HALF has it all! This multigenerational family saga takes place from the 1940s to the 1990s and centers on identical twin sisters Stella and Desiree Vignes. Though inseparable growing up, the Vignes twin’s lives sharply diverged after they ran away from their small, Southern Black community as teenagers. Estranged from each other, one twin returns home as an adult while the other secretly lives her life as a white woman. Though living completely separate and different lives, fate forces the twins and their families together. THE VANISHING HALF asks the question: what happens to those who choose to vanish and to those who are left behind? THE VANISHING HALF examines racial identity, colorism, trauma, reinvention, and above all the concept of “passing.” Bennett mainly explores the effects of racial passing and how a black woman passing as white simultaneously overcomes the barriers of race and reinforces them. Not only is racial passing discussed but we also see how passing can occur with gender and socioeconomic class. With masterful storytelling and exceptional character development, Bennett skillfully manages time jumps, shifts in narrative perspective, and multiple complex plot threads. Though there is a reliance on coincidence, I found the story totally engrossing and an overall fantastic read! If for some reason you have not read THE VANISHING HALF, what are you doing? Trust me, you will not regret reading this one! Plus, HBO is adapting it into a limited series… need I say more?! Without a doubt THE VANISHING HALF is a must-read book that I think every person would not only benefit from reading but highly enjoy! Follow my Instagram for more book reviews and fun book content: @BookyNooky

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Vanishing Half book review
*by S***. on February 27, 2024*

After reading The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet, I was overall impressed with the coverage the author showed of everyone’s life. The story is told in the third person perspective and switches between times in multiple characters’ lives. At first, I was a bit confused but as I continued to read, things started to come together. The author included a background for most characters so it was less challenging to understand their perspective. These insights into their lives have a massive contribution to the plot of the story. They add dramatic and suspenseful effects. The literary devices like diction, syntax, and detail further added to these effects. Though I felt that the story moved very slowly and that the author spent too much time switching between characters before getting to the peak, the long-awaited climax helped build up suspense and the urge to continue reading. The story starts out with Desiree returning to her hometown, giving some information about the twins' past and why they left. The story then continues to switch between the lives of Desiree, Stella, and their daughters, Jude and Kennedy. When the author introduces a new character, I think they did a good job giving them a brief background and their importance to the story, for example, Early and Reese. These are two love interests in the story and are there as a companion to Desiree and Jude in their separate lives. I felt that the transition between the characters and the change in time happened too inconsistently and I sometimes found myself lost. For instance, when the author shifted perspectives between Jude and Kennedy. The story being told in a third-person perspective gave readers a chance to acknowledge each character’s thoughts and feelings. From a very young age, The twins experienced something very traumatic that had a major impact on their lives. The literary devices used create an obvious difference between the twins’ lives and add to the theme of the story. Desiree chooses to return to her censorious hometown and embrace the darker shade of her daughter’s skin while Stella pretends to be something she’s not and lives her life as a lie. I enjoyed reading the parallel storylines the author included and thought they added to the dramatic effect of the overall story. In conclusion, I found the book interesting. Everyone in the story had their own struggles and it made me acknowledge more all the things I am grateful for. Though both of the twins experienced trauma and loss, they were both able to overcome it and find love.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review
*by A***N on December 15, 2020*

The Vanishing Half starts off in the fictional town of Mallard, which was built in 1848 by a person with mixed parentage for “men like him, who would never be accepted as white but refused to be treated as blacks”. Even as his black mother keeps him in the sun to darken his skin, he eventually marries a woman with lighter skin than even his own, hoping that future generations get lighter and lighter, “like a cup of coffee being steadily diluted with cream”, as Bennett puts it. This – the tussle between wanting to pass as white, for that meant to pass as free, and the fierce need to own and protect one’s racial identity – then forms the core of this novel. Desiree and Stella are twin sisters and descendants of Mallard’s founder, physically identical but as different as chalk and cheese. Desiree is the more adventurous and rebellious of the two while Stella is the staider, and they run away from home at the age of sixteen – Desiree because she hates the pretentious town where people are “colorstruck” and Stella simply because she wants a better life. And as fate would have it, and due to individual choices that the sisters make, Desiree returns home while Stella passes as white and leads a life filled with lies. The story spans about 40 years and touches upon three generations, with intertwining stories, and is filled with an interesting and well-fleshed out supporting cast – Early Jones, who had a childhood crush on Desiree but could not express it due to his color and who eventually becomes her main pillar of support, Desiree’s dark-skinned daughter Jude, who like her mother, is unforgiving of people who refuse to recognize their heritage, her boyfriend Reese who has been grappling with issues related to his sexuality and Stella’s daughter Kennedy, a Californian blonde, with a chequered relationship with her mother. The contrast between Desiree and Stella is one of the most interesting aspects of the book, and also likely to be one of the most debated topics for any reading club. Ostensibly, the portrayal of Desiree seems more sympathetic and that of Stella seems somewhat cruel. But the story gradually reveals several layers to their characters. For example, it is unclear whether Desiree’s marriage to dark-skinned Sam is driven purely by love or to an extent by her hatred of what Mallard stood for and Stella’s behavior is partly explained by the racial and sexual violence witness by her during her childhood and teen years. Finally, Bennett’s writing is top-notch – simple yet evocative. At one point, Stella, who spends nearly her entire life hiding things from everyone around her, notices her husband’s arousal and feels embarrassed for him as “she could think of nothing more horrifying than not being able to hide what she wanted” and metaphors such as these add to the reading pleasure! Pros: Interesting plot, well-defined characters, beautiful writing Cons: None really, unless this genre does not appeal to one

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*Store origin: IT*
*Last updated: 2026-03-02*