*3.5

While The Vanishing Half has many thought provoking ideas, some really fantastic writing, and a great narrative, a lot of the areas of this novel fell short in my opinion. The story is a multigenerational journey: starting with two black twins in a small colorist Louisiana town during the 50s. One twin Stella, learns that she is light enough to pass as white, while the other twin, Desiree, learns to embrace her blackness. The two split up, and the novel ventures, eventually into their adulthood and their children’s lives.

There are many ideas in The Vanishing Half that were very interesting, and very many good discussions of race and colorism. However, my main issue with the novel was that I felt we just didn’t go far enough into the repercussions of Stella passing as white. We did not see the extent of who she hurt by doing this, and the time in between and to her adulthood where she was most concerned about passing for white (which definitely would have made the story most interesting). We don’t get see her fear for passing as white, and the pain she had by giving up her blackness. It was disappointing to me, because one of the main plot points of the book was supposed to be about Stella trying to pass as white women and it’s barely even mentioned.

Many of the characters in here aren’t as fleshed out as they should have been either. While both Desiree and her daughter Jude have enough meat on their characters for me to care about them, we barley got much of Stella or her daughter Kennedy. Both Stella and Kennedy only get about two chapters each from their points of view, which is not nearly enough time for me to neither care, nor understand either characters.

Not only that, but the beginning of this novel was an absolute slog to get through for absolutely no reason. We spend too long with Desiree and Stella as children, and not enough time with them as adults in their points of view to fully understand their actions. The only truly compelling part of this story was when Jude, Desiree’s daughter leaves home for college and story starts marginally picking up.

Jude and her boyfriend Reece are truly the most interesting storyline in here. Jude is definitely the character I felt the most sympathy for, due to the explicit colorism and racism she faced her entire life. Meeting her boyfriend Reece really developed her character, and made the story interesting. Speaking of Reece, Reece is most definitely the most interesting character in this story. Reece is a trans man, and we very much see the struggles and challenges he faces being a trans man in this time period. If this book was entirely about Jude and Reece, I wouldn’t have minded in the slightest.

I think spending so much time with Jude and Reece though really did make the rest of the book feel lackluster in comparison. I hate to say it (especially because so many of the other topics in this book are important) but the sections with them were easily some of the most intriguing and better written. There were so many ideas, themes, lessons, and loose threads that Bennett could have touched or tied on and The Vanishing Half really felt like the bare bones of everything that this book could have gone into.

This book really started feeling like the same life lessons spewing over and over again. I just wish we could have gotten more. The bare bones was decent, but it could have been better. I don’t think this story is bad, and I do think it’s a book many (if not everyone) should read. Brit Bennett’s writing is also phenomenally well done. I will definitely check out her other novel that she currently has out. But this was unfortunately, not a new favorite as I’d hoped it’d be.