Reviews with content warning for Transphobia - The Vanishing Half

Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

183 reviews

ynaiita_5896's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Identical twins Desiree and Stella were born and raised in Mallard, Louisiana where the residents are obsessed with people with light skin. At 16 years old, they run away from home, leaving behind their widowed mother. After choosing to go their separate ways, they also end up choosing completely different lives as adults. Ten years later, one sister returns with her black daughter to the same town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, despite being separated by miles and lies, their fates continue to remain intertwined.

Bennett beautifully paints a historical fiction that intelligently navigates race, identity, colourism, culture and sexuality with careful nuance — highlighting the varied layers in each of these themes through the eyes of something as ordinary as identical twins. A story written so intricately with elements of thrill, suspense and emotional intensity, that you just can't stop reading.

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books_tea_blanket's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I really liked a lot of the language the author used to describe the characters and their relationships. You could see their motivations for the decisions they made, and how drastically different their lives became as a result of their choices. The primary theme of the novel is identity, and the author wrestled with how identity is formed, how it’s expressed, and how it makes you feel. Throughout the book there’s contrasts of dark and light, white and black, poor and rich, love and lies, and more broad themes of life.

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bmpicc's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

One decision and... everything changes. This book is marketed to us as a novel about "passing". I read a novel about "identity". Identity of self. Identity of family. My 3.5 star rating is because too many stories were happening and they each felt a bit incomplete.

Is it about Desiree & Stella? Stella & Kennedy? Kennedy & Jude? Jude & Reese? And what about Desiree & Early? Let us not forget the family matriarch and her battle with Alzheimer's. The twins were lost in the background.

I appreciate the important issues the author presented to the reader and you know I love a generational family saga, but I wish it had been shared through the twins perspectives and not their children. I wanted to know more about the twins and how they felt. About each other, their relationship, their daughters and their daughters choices.

“The only difference between lying and acting was whether your audience was in on it, but it was all a performance just the same.”

"At least Peg stood for something, fought for something. She went to war with the university over everything: paid maternity leave, sexist faculty hiring, and exploitation of adjunct labor. She argued about these things even though she had no children and had already secured tenure - she argued even though her advocating wouldn't benefit her at all. It baffled Stella, protesting out of a sense of duty, or maybe even amusement."

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dannithach's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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nina_mk's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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_fallinglight_'s review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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danielnski's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I loved how deeply thoughtful this story is about what lies we tell ourselves and each other, why we do it, and what ones are worth preserving. The writing is incredible, sensitive, and gentle with the characters, whether they deserve it or not.

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