Brit Bennett's novel The Vanishing Half (#1,038) explores the consequences of one identical Black twin passing as white in the turbulent days of the late Twentieth Century. Stella is the twin who one day vanishes from New Orleans and her sister Desiree's apartment with no notice, nor any means of contacting her.
Desiree and her mother must deal with the anguish of uncertainty, not knowing Stella's fate. Did she disappear on purpose, or did she meet a more sinister fate? Desiree herself disappears from their tiny Louisiana town of Mallard, where the lighter your skin, the higher your social standing is in this still "colored" town. When Desiree returns unexpectedly with an ebony-skinned daughter in tow, she must help young Jude cope with a place that judges her solely on the color of her skin.
When Jude earns a scholarship to Stanford, it sets in motion a chance meeting between Jude and her long-lost aunt Stella and a cousin she didn't know she had.
Acceptance, ambition and rejection are all explored through the prism of Stella and Desiree's lives. It makes for engrossing reading. That is, up until the end of book, where the story just seems to fizzle out. Maybe that's the point; nothing in life is ever fully resolved. I'm left ambivalent about whether or not I liked this book. You'll have to read it for yourself to judge.
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