From the Bookshelf of 2025 Reading Challenge…

The Vanishing Half

Brit Bennett

Start date: August 1, 2022

Finish date: August 31, 2022

Discussion: August 2025 Buddy Reads

Why we're reading this: Featured Buddy Read for August
[close] Featured Buddy Read for August

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What Members Thought

Jul 21, 2020 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, all-time-favorites, era-mid-20th-c, 100-best-of-21st-c, stsr, audio, r2020-in-2020

I loved this book so much, I don’t even have the words to say why.

The plot is fairly standard: twin sister grow up, do different things, they each have a daughter, the daughters do things. But it is just so achingly gorgeous. It’s full of themes and I know that sounds not-so-extraordinary, but this book feels extraordinary as it deals with themes of life and death, belonging, leaving and returning, hiding who you really are or becoming who you know you are, family, truth, lies, love, and hate.

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4 likes · Like · see review

Sep 27, 2020 Lisa rated it really liked it

One of the best parts of this 50-book commitment streak I am on is that I am discovering when and why I like fiction. Apparently I have accumulated a set of goals and allegiances over these 48 years of life, and as I read, I am aligning the work with those elements.

Brit Bennett debuted with The Mothers, which won awards and has been lifted up by other writers as a must-read. The Vanishing Half is the book that followed. I have not read it yeht. What I am discerning is that it takes Bennett's con ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Sep 09, 2020 Bea rated it really liked it

This is the second book I have read about a person "passing" for white. " The Human Stain" was the other book I read and was heartbreaking and very good for the first half. This book was a little slow in the beginning, but picked up and was kind of sad, I thought, but intriguing. I tried to imagine what it would be like to try to pass as another race, but always worrying that someone would find out. What a lot of stress to live with, not to mention the guilt of leaving your family behind with no ...more

Like · see review