{"id":47129,"date":"2020-07-30T11:12:45","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T15:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=47129"},"modified":"2020-07-29T12:56:05","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T16:56:05","slug":"the-vanishing-half-by-brit-bennett-in-booklist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-vanishing-half-by-brit-bennett-in-booklist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett [in Booklist]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-47078\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/06\/Vanishing-Half-Brit-Bennett-BookDragon-519x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"519\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/06\/Vanishing-Half-Brit-Bennett-BookDragon-519x800.jpg 519w, https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/06\/Vanishing-Half-Brit-Bennett-BookDragon.jpg 630w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 519px) 100vw, 519px\" \/><strong>*STARRED REVIEW<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/britbennett.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Brit Bennett<\/a> was widely awarded for <em><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/mothers-brit-bennet-library-journal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Mothers<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(2016), and her highly-anticipated sophomore title \u2013 regardless of medium \u2013 won\u2019t disappoint. With exacting nuance, narrator Shayna Small immediately distinguishes one Vignes twin sister from the other. Desiree, the \u201cfidgety twin&#8230; always restless,\u201d is seven minutes older than Stella, who is \u201cso calm &#8230; whip smart.\u201d At 16, the inseparable pair escape \u201cthat strange, separate town\u201d of Mallard, Louisiana in 1954, landing in New Orleans.<\/p>\n<p>Fourteen years later, Desiree returns, holding the hand of her 7-or-8-year-old \u201cblueblack\u201d daughter Jude, fleeing her abusive husband in Washington, DC. Stella, meanwhile, has been living as a privileged white woman in Los Angeles since marrying her employer and having a blond, violet-eyed daughter, Kennedy.\u00a0Jude, now an undergraduate at UCLA, will be the one to recognize her mother\u2019s vanished half. Kennedy and Jude will be the reluctant links to the Vignes reunions.<\/p>\n<p>As the decades move forward, Bennett\u2019s cast multiplies, with Small effortlessly adapting to the chimerical characters, as race, age, gender, and backgrounds continuously shift. Stella morphs from black to white, poor to old-money wealth. Jude grows from backwater pariah to big-city dreamer. Jude\u2019s lover abandons the stifling, abusive south as Therese Anne Carter to claim his true self as Reese. Transformations abound, yet Small never falters, carrying the many generations toward revelation and reunion with resonance and depth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.booklistonline.com\/The-Vanishing-Half-\/pid=9737291\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">&#8220;Media,&#8221; <em>Booklist<\/em>, July 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>*STARRED REVIEW Brit Bennett was widely awarded for The Mothers\u00a0(2016), and her highly-anticipated sophomore title \u2013 regardless of medium \u2013 won\u2019t disappoint. With exacting nuance, narrator Shayna Small immediately distinguishes one Vignes twin sister from the other. Desiree, the \u201cfidgety twin&#8230; always restless,\u201d is seven&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,142,6,6535],"tags":[6608,6668,7185,10,11,51,8281,13,145,129,29,8801,44,9204],"class_list":["post-47129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-audio","category-black-african-american","category-fiction","category-repost","tag-bookdragon","tag-booklist","tag-brit-bennett","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-identity","tag-lbgtqia","tag-love","tag-mixed-race-issues","tag-mother-daughter-relationship","tag-race-racism","tag-shayna-small","tag-siblings","tag-vanishing-half"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett [in Booklist] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-vanishing-half-by-brit-bennett-in-booklist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett [in Booklist] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"*STARRED REVIEW Brit Bennett was widely awarded for The Mothers\u00a0(2016), and her highly-anticipated sophomore title \u2013 regardless of medium \u2013 won\u2019t disappoint. With exacting nuance, narrator Shayna Small immediately distinguishes one Vignes twin sister from the other. Desiree, the \u201cfidgety twin&#8230; always restless,\u201d is seven...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-vanishing-half-by-brit-bennett-in-booklist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-07-30T15:12:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-07-29T16:56:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/06\/Vanishing-Half-Brit-Bennett-BookDragon.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"972\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett [in Booklist] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-vanishing-half-by-brit-bennett-in-booklist\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett [in Booklist] - BookDragon","og_description":"*STARRED REVIEW Brit Bennett was widely awarded for The Mothers\u00a0(2016), and her highly-anticipated sophomore title \u2013 regardless of medium \u2013 won\u2019t disappoint. With exacting nuance, narrator Shayna Small immediately distinguishes one Vignes twin sister from the other. Desiree, the \u201cfidgety twin&#8230; always restless,\u201d is seven...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-vanishing-half-by-brit-bennett-in-booklist\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2020-07-30T15:12:45+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-07-29T16:56:05+00:00","og_image":[{"width":630,"height":972,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/06\/Vanishing-Half-Brit-Bennett-BookDragon.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-vanishing-half-by-brit-bennett-in-booklist\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-vanishing-half-by-brit-bennett-in-booklist\/","name":"The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett [in Booklist] - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2020-07-30T15:12:45+00:00","dateModified":"2020-07-29T16:56:05+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-vanishing-half-by-brit-bennett-in-booklist\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-vanishing-half-by-brit-bennett-in-booklist\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-vanishing-half-by-brit-bennett-in-booklist\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett [in Booklist]"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47129"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47154,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47129\/revisions\/47154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}