A review by theredheded_bibliomaniac
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

"Why can’t you just be yourself?” Stella asked once. "Maybe I don’t know who that is,”
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Identity . Someone is running from it .
Someone trying to find it .someone hiding it. Someone somewhere is figuring it out ..
What's the think with identity ...
Someone somewhere is having identity crisis but their parents are not aware about it.. sometimes even friends don't know what going on with their friend.
Many times Parent themselves had identity issue but when their kids have it they don't understand it ..
Well this book talks on this topic a lot.
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Twin sisters Born as coloured person with white skin were confused about where they belong are they white coz of their skin or coloured coz of their Ancestors ..?
Should they cover themselves with hat to keep the whiteness intact or 
Should go to the river and get tanned ?
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Both decided to find themselves by running away from their country to the city..
"You can escape a town, but you cannot escape blood." 
And both of them choose different life..
And then how the story unfolds..
When one sister leaves other to go on different path what will the other do, coz they were together since the time they were in their mothers womb ..
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What problems both faced in their particular life and how they raised their daughters in totally different environment from each other ..
How eventually the daughters meet..
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There are many instances which show what a privilege it is to be white skinned like :

 “I just liked who I was with him.”
“White.”
“No,” Stella said. “Free.”
Desiree laughed. “Same thing, baby.” 
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Thai freedom was not free for the coloured people even for coloured people with white skin..
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Most of us might not even know what this term means "coloured white people" is ...
There is a whole town of coloured people with white skin..
The problems faced by coloured people with white skin is something I saw for the first time.
Infact I never heard something like this they look as good as any white person but they were still coloured 
And this affected their mind.
You can't be white for your skin,
you are coloured coz you are from coloured family.
In the town full of coloured white people a coloured person is still scorned and hated like anything.
This town shown in the book is imaginary town but there are such towns in America..
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This is the story of the twins and their daughter infact of mother of the twins..
She is also mentioned a lot here.
But there should have been something about what the mother felt when the girls left, which is not mentioned.. both sisters longed to meet their mother ..
And for mother she was crazy for her twins and knew then inside out ❤️
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There wer some parts which could have been shortened or made more Interesting..(I felt the daughters lives was shown too much in detail,  like it could have been shortened)
The end could have been much better.. like it ended abruptly.. 
(If I say what I missed it would be spoiler) 
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Other than all these everything worked 
It is worth all the hype I can say.
You guys should definitely read it.

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