Thank you so much @dialoguebooks for gifting me a copy of The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett! This book swept me up and easily landed a place in my top books of 2020. I'm not alone in this, readers all over Instagram are falling for this book, and as soon as you start reading, it's easy to see why. You have to pick up a copy of this one for yourself!

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We follow Desiree and Stella Vignes, two identical twins from the town of Mallard, whose lives end up taking drastically different paths. Stella and Desiree escape their tiny hometown where colourism runs rampant at a young age, determined to make it on their own in New Orleans. There, one of them takes the first steps towards living her new life 'passing' as a white woman while married to a white man, while the other twin marries a darker-skinned Black man.

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Brit Bennett absolutely nails every human dynamic she touches upon, in heartbreaking yet beautiful ways. From the danger of 'moderate' white people who are all for equality unless it's in their own neighbourhood, to husbands who are all for their wife improving and educating herself until that means his control over her weakens. From the cruelty of children who learn their racial prejudices at home and bring them to school to the complex relationship between a child and a parent who is abusive towards the other parent. There are few stones left unturned here, and Bennett presents and dissects these issues with exquisite poignancy.

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I loved the way the characters' lives wove in and out of the other's. I devoured this book within 24 hours, it was so compelling and I just had to find out how the characters would fare in the end. It spans decades and follows different generations of the family, which is exactly the kind of saga that sucks me in every time.

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Now I definitely need to read Nella Larsen's Passing, as well as Bennett's debut The Mothers, as I'm in love with her writing!