The Other Half isn’t as Beautiful as It Seems
The concept of trying to disappear in different areas of your life is the central theme in this book – A Book Review on The Vanishing Half
The Vanishing Half is one of those books that leave you shaken long after you’ve put it down. The type of book that enters into your mind and psyche like a bad habit. The type of book that makes you look at your own life and wonder whether or not you’d want to vanish too. For something new, something better.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett is an intimate piece of fiction about two twins who run away from their small town called Mallard. One comes back to Mallard with her daughter, and the other passes for White in secret with a brand new life.
The storyline is so carefully thought out that I thought this may have been based on a true story. Although it is not in chronological order, it is all so effortlessly tied together. The author really makes us wait for the juiciest details. It’s anything but predictable.
Picturesque Writing and Thematic Parallels
The author has a simplistic, eloquent writing style that creates strong visuals and emotions. It’s as if you’re watching a movie. More importantly, when I read it, I got immersed into another world without thinking about it. That – to me – is the best kind of writing: getting lost in it. Feeling like I could “binge” this book and still want to read it again.
Beyond the writing style, I wanted more time with the twins in The Vanishing Half. After the first quarter, it really centers around their children and their lives as adults. As a reader, I’ve already gotten attached to the twins and invested in their outcome. I felt their intimacy and strange, beloved closeness transforming into palpable aching for the other.
I suppose leaving the twins out for the second half as the main protagonists created that deep sense of longing for the reader as well. However, this reminds me of The Photograph. The mothers are far more interesting, but their children take up bulk of the reading. This really causes a plateau toward middle story-wise.
The author also includes too many side storylines to fill in the gaps until we see the twins again. A core theme in this book is the idea of wearing a mask and vanishing from your old self. But this becomes way too convoluted and doesn’t help the plot when too many storylines are involved. Storylines such as the child’s transgender boyfriend, a drag queen for a best friend, another child being an actress. The concept of wearing a mask was somewhat forced after a while and became a little boring. The twins’ premise and opening was strong and very realistic; the side storylines were boring by comparison.
The Meaning of Life: What does it take to be happy?
However, there are strong lessons to be had with dedicating so much time to the twins’ children after seeing the twins themselves as children. It reminds us that youth is both a blessing and a curse. What would you do if you could be anything you ever wanted to be? Have anything you’ve ever wanted? This book is basically saying that even if you have everything in the world you’ve ever wanted, could ever want, and will ever want, that sometimes it’ll never feel like enough. When you’re young, you don’t know what steps you should take. But by the time you do, it’s too late (supposedly). You get one shot at life. The only thing I enjoyed about their children was the parallel between the children and the twins, which showed us how their lives would’ve turned out under different circumstances with similar ambitions. It is deeply heartbreaking.
Youth is Both a Blessing and a Curse
With being young, there are still all of these dreams. To believe that you’re going to take the world by storm. That you’ll have people know your name and care about you. A hope that you’ll do “big things”. It never occurs to you in your young brain that it’s not going to happen like that.
There’s no magic formula to being happy with yourself and your life. Nothing can show us what’s missing in our lives that will make it go from average to the ideal life we dream of everyday. Because no matter what we do, struggling is part of the bargain. Sometimes, it can feel like the world has been selling dreams and you got caught trying to be something that you’re not for the sake of this fleeting happiness you can’t seem to lock down.
Whiteness as a Metaphor
This book digs into some very important issues. The first is Whiteness as a metaphor: accepting the version of you that will get a better life (how you have to talk differently, dress differently, act differently, etc). Being “White” in this sense is just choosing a life where you can live with privilege instead of struggle – or the illusion of privilege. Like a Black American moving to a Third World country and still making American dollars to live with the lower prices, but you still have to deal with other inequities across the world. So in this book, becoming White goes beyond the physical. It’s her ticket to a better life in a place where she was originally written off. It’s a chance, seemingly, to breathe.
The second issue is that race is a perception – how people see you – but not who you are or your identity. That’s why race as an identity can feel psychologically challenging and damaging. Because you are more than your skin color, or at least should be. And trying to identify with race can drive you crazy if you let it.
“Can you really be considered colored if you can pass for White?”
Moreover, the most pressing question I had during this entire read was this: can you really be considered colored if you can pass for White? What is Blackness for twins that are so light one of them could pass for another race? What do we consider Black?
Then it pushes even more concerns: some people don’t even consider “mixed” people Black and that they should have their own race, some people believe that Black people are simply melanated in varying shades, and some people think as long as they have “a drop of Black,” then they’re Black. But then how can you have a drop if you don’t even know what you consider Black in the first place? Is race another word for the perception of you? How do you know if you’re Black? In the world, America especially, it’s a dangerous game not to know what race you are, and what race you ought to be. Just look at Meghan Markle’s situation. In America, she was White-passing, but to the royal family, she was a Black girl like any other Black girl. That’s a really strange concept.
Was This Worth the Read?
Lastly, my biggest upset in this read was the ending. I won’t spoil it for you, but this book has a passive resolution. You will read this wonderful story, get hooked, and be left with nothing at all. Something at the end feels incomplete. I didn’t get that wave of relief after finishing the book, and the ending seemed rather rushed and random.
I probably would’ve liked the vague ending a bit more had there been a strong symbolism behind the original premise. There wasn’t. There was no deeper meaning to their abrupt separation – after they ran away – that completely uprooted the course of their lives forever. The premise for why they left Mallard made perfect sense, but their separation thereafter made no sense in the grand scheme of the story. Maybe of life – maybe – but not for this book. We needed a more direct ending for all of these moving pieces.
After everything was said and done, everything that happened almost seemed random and out of place, never making that final connection – that final “aha, I get it” moment. But that’s life, and I’m sure we can all agree that sometimes there are no answers for why life unfolds the way that it does. So in that regard, The Vanishing Half is very realistic and tugs on the heart with its rawness and uncomfortable honesty.
The ending really had me like “what was the point of the twins’ story?” Why do they matter? I didn’t really get that. And this is probably because we never see how their lives truly affected them internally. That was missing. I thought I wanted to know what happened to them, but the truth was I wanted to know who they were.
Final Thoughts
Overall, it’s a magnetic read with underlying thoughts that will rack your brain with so many questions that we wish we had the answers to. It’s interesting, and simple to read. Though be warned, it is frustrating. You’ll probably want to throw this book across the room while simultaneously clinging onto it for dear life. It’s a wild ride. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Purchase book here.
Photo by: https://unsplash.com/photos/neFlyoPfCRM
Tags: The Vanishing Half, The Vanishing Half book review, Brit Bennett
