The Euro Trap: On Bursting Bubbles, Budgets, and Beliefs
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This book offers a critical assessment of the history of the euro, its crisis, and the rescue...
The Glorious Heresies
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS' WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016 SHORTLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOT PRIZE...
The Painted Man
Peter V. Brett and Dominik Broniek
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The stunning debut fantasy novel from author Peter V. Brett. The Painted Man, book one of the Demon...
The Painted Man (the Demon Cycle, Book 1)
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The stunning debut fantasy novel from author Peter V. Brett. The Painted Man, book one of the Demon...
John Sladek SF Gateway Omnibus: The Reproductive System, The Muller-fokker Effect, Tik-Tok
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From the vaults of The SF Gateway, the most comprehensive digital library of classic SFF titles ever...
Red Team: How to Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy
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Red teaming. It is a practice as old as the Devil's Advocate, the eleventh-century Vatican official...
Rent Unmasked: How to Save the Global Economy and Build a Sustainable Future
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Rent Unmasked explores the new economic paradigm that policy-makers need to solve global problems in...
Bring Up the Bodies
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Read our exclusive interview with Hilary Mantel +++ Read the novel as an ebook Man Booker...
ClareR (6253 KP) rated The Vanishing Half in Books
Jul 8, 2020
It’s a story about secrets, lies and reinvention - the sacrifices someone has to make in order to get the life they want. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
Stella and Desirée Vignes are identical twin sisters, brought up in a small southern town, where all the inhabitants are black people who could pass for white people if they wanted to (which a very dangerous thing to try and do at the time the story is set).
The twins escape together, and then Stella leaves Desirée. Stella discovers that she can pass as white, and marries a wealthy white man, who knows nothing of her origins. Desirée marries a black man who beats her, and so she escapes back to her mother with her dark skinned daughter, Jude. Jude is never accepted in Desirée’s home town of Mallard, and so she leaves to go to university as soon as she is able to.
This is where Jude’s life unwittingly intersects with that of Stella’s daughter, and secrets that have been kept for so long, are brought out into the open.
I loved everything about this book. The characters and their motivations, the storyline, the way the book was written - everything! I could see why Stella did what she did, and how she felt trapped by her choices, and it’s a great example of how prejudice and racism works in the USA - and potentially here in the UK as well.
I really do highly recommend this book. It’s such a great story that kept me engaged from start to finish. I have to admit to reading it slower to make it last longer - it’s a book that I’ll be recommending to my friends, that’s for sure!


