A review by lepasseportlitteraire
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

This book has quite everything I enjoy in a book: impeccable character development, a perfect balance in descriptions and dialogues (I hate long descriptions as much as I hate useless dialogues put there only to fill a couple pages), and alternante narrators. In addition to that, we get to see the evolution of a family in time, while describing the American society over a laps of time from the 1950s to the 1990s.

While the theme of race is central to the story, it is far to be the only theme to be covered by the novel: Brit Bennett also cover the themes of gender identity, as well as class, social constructs and family relationships.