Tag: twins

Categories
books and reading

The Vanishing Half

Title: The Vanishing Half

Author: Brit Bennet

Genre: Black and African American literary fiction

Books like this one are always on my radar, but I don’t make them a priority to get to. I’m just so stuck in my horror/dystopian/thriller genres of choice that I don’t always get to literary fiction like I mean to. But I’ve been doing better about putting these kinds of books on hold and then reading them once the library sends them to my kindle. And I am so thankful I did. What an amazing book!

From Goodreads: The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?

Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

This book was really character-driven, and said characters were just perfect. The twins, Stella and Desiree, are so different from each other, and their lives diverge so much. Stella, passing as white, never seems happy, always looking over her shoulder, expecting her truth to be revealed. The story is told in chunks of time, not only about the twins, but also their children. Jude is Desiree’s daughter Kennedy is Stella’s. Jude is also trying to escape her past and figure out who she is. Kennedy is doing the same but for many different reasons. Don’t get me wrong; there is a plot, of course. But these women jump right off the page and take control. I couldn’t get enough of their stories and understand why everyone raves about this book.

Categories
books and reading

Before You Leap

I’m a proud owner of a Kindle and Amazon Prime, so I take advantage of the Kindle Firsts program. Each month, Amazon sends me a handful of books that I may “purchase” for free since I’m a Prime member. Before You Leap had been in my to-read list for awhile, and I discovered I needed a book about twins for the 2018 book challenge. Granted, one of the twins is dead in this book, but I counted it anyway.

The story starts out in the present, then flashes back in time to a few days earlier, so I’ll start with the earlier part first. Greg’s sister Scarlett was murdered ten years ago, but her killer has been let out of prison. A private investigator informs Greg of this fact and clues him in that the killer is now headed toward Florida, where Greg now lives with his platonic BFF Eve. Greg also has a sleepwalking condition and frequently finds himself in the rain in unexplainable circumstances. He works as a therapist in Florida and is simply trying to get on with his life. He has a girlfriend, a job, a happy life until the news of the killer reaches him.

Let me just say this now. The ending was ABSURD. Like roll your eyes, groan, how cheesy absurd. I hated it. Books like these anger me so much. Instead of just letting a mystery play out, which this did until the last few pages, there has to be some CRAZY TWIST THAT YOU DIDN’T SEE COMING!! OMG!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT???? But it never works for me. I hate that ploy. The “oh he wasn’t really dead for the entire novel even though you tricked us into thinking he was” or the “the guy’s twin brother isn’t really a twin brother, it was him in disguise!” or some other kind of crap. Not that either of those things happen in this book, but they are examples of ridiculous plot twists that make zero sense. And this book has a whopper of one. I was generous to give this one 3 stars, honestly. The ending was just so awful.

Categories
books and reading

I’ll Give You the Sun

I feel like young adult books have made a resurgence in quality. There were always good ones, but so many of them are tackling important issues, dealing with realistic situations, and aren’t talking down to their audience. Between Dear Martin, The Hate U Give, and Everything I Never Told You, I’ve read some amazing YA books and recommend them all. And I’m going to add I’ll Give You the Sun to this list.

For the 2018 book challenge, I needed to read a book with an LBGTQ protagonist, and in I’ll Give You the Sun, the main character, Noah, is dealing with being gay, not being accepted, falling in love, and struggling with it all. He also has a twin sister, Jude, who he loves more than anyone, but their lives have diverged. There are many situations in this book that are hard to read about, mostly of loss, but watching the characters navigate through the trials is worth the read. Told in alternating perspectives (Noah when he and Jude are 13 and then Jude when she and Noah are 16) you really get the entire picture of what happened when they were 13 and how it changed them over the next three years.

This book is also one for the art lover. Both Noah and Jude are talented artists vying to get into the local art magnet (or some such) high school. As you read, more secrets are revealed as to how Noah and Jude became as divided as they are at age 16. It’s heartbreaking, but honest. I’ve been very lucky to come across some wonderful books as of late and highly recommend this one.