Vanishing Half (Bennett) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Bennett is a remarkably assured writer who mostly sidesteps the potential for melodrama inherent in a form built upon secrecy and revelation. The past laps at the present in short flashbacks, never weighing down the quick current of a story that covers almost 20 years….  [T]he pages fairly turn themselves… in a book about suppressed lineages…. As old as the story of passing may be, so too is the effort… to capture its complicated desire.
Parul Sehgal-New York Times


I don't think I've read a book that covers passing in the way that this one does… epic.
Oprah Magazine
 

Not to be missed.
Harper’s Bazaar


Here, in her sensitive, elegant prose, [Bennett] evokes both the strife of racism, and what it does to a person even if they can evade some of its elements.
Vogue


This is sure to be one of 2020’s best and boldest…. A tale of family, identity, race, history, and perception, Bennett’s next masterpiece is a triumph of character-driven narrative.
Elle


Worth an early pre-order. It's a curvy, looping story… a fitting complement to her debut book, 2017's The Mothers. I gobbled this up.
Bustle


(Starred review) Impressive…. Bennett renders her characters and their struggles with great compassion, and explores the complicated state of mind that Stella finds herself in while passing as white. This prodigious follow-up surpasses Bennett’s formidable debut.
Publishers Weekly


Bennett here features identical twin sisters, who at age 16 run away from their small, black, 1950s Southern town and take different paths, one passing for white. What's key is the relationship between their daughters
Library Journal


(Starred review) Bennett keeps all these plot threads thrumming and her social commentary crisp. In the second half, Jude spars with her cousin Kennedy, Stella's daughter, a spoiled actress. Kin find "each other’s lives inscrutable" in this rich, sharp story about the way identity is formed.
Kirkus Reviews