The Vanishing Half

Brit Bennett

Book cover for The Vanishing Half

Beautifully written. Twin sisters run away from their home in the South. Both are black, but one goes on to pass as a white woman while the other eventually returns to her hometown. To be honest it initially made me question - if no one can tell the difference, why not pretend to be white when it's convenient? The book takes place in the 50s onwards where there is still segregation and a lot of discrimination e.g. can't get certain jobs.

Obviously an ignorant question, and the book does a good job of showing how the white-passing sister struggles to deal with the effects of hiding her true identity from everyone around her.