The Vanishing Half is probably one of my favourite books of 2020. This book is beautiful, heartbreaking, emotional and full of life, love and humanity. At the core, Brit Bennett writes about family, identity, womanhood, sisterhood, motherhood, love, and grief. The Vanishing Half packs punch as it covers themes of race, class, poverty, identity, being transgender and LGBTQ+ and more. Brit Bennett stole my heart with her writing, with her characters and with this book.

The book is about Desiree Vignes and her twin Stella Vignes who grow up in a small black community in a village called Mallard, Louisiana. When the girls reach their teenage years their lives take vastly different trajectories, as Stella abandons her family, her sister, and her identity to become a white woman, a white wife and a white mother. Desiree on the other hand marries a black man, has a black daughter and does not forget her roots in Mallard. The story begins in the 1950s, but jumps across time as we see the girls and their daughters grow up and how their lives differ and yet still intersect in different ways.

The characters in this book were absolutely phenomenal. They were written with such depth, emotion and realness that I was entirely absorbed in every moment, every detail of their story. The story of Jude and Reese was ultimately my favourite aspect of this book. Jude, who is the daughter of Desiree and Reese the boy she meets in California.

I loved Brit Bennett's use of time jumps to frame the different moments and different periods of the history of the twins and their daughters. I loved the different geographical changes that symbolised different moments and events in the lives of the characters. I loved how seamlessly she interwove these jumps in moments, the shifts in character perspectives and narratives and how it all fitted to build a picture of two lives, two histories, but ultimately one family narrative. I loved literally everything about this book.

I often find it difficult to put into words why I love books that speak to me so much, and that fill me with such emotions and thoughts. One thing is clear,The Vanishing Half offers a really powerful exploration of race and race relations as we see how being either black or white can make such a profound difference on two sisters experiences.

I would urge you all to pick up this book because it was beautiful, emotive and covered so many fantastic themes. I received an eARC from Netgalley and Little Brown Book UK in exchange for a review, but I will definitely be purchasing my own physical copy of this book because I adored it so so much.