If you follow publishing news, then you know that the #1 New York Times bestselling Own Voices novel The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett has been generating a ton of buzz in the literary world. But that also means that the holds list for it at the library is long … very long. So while you wait for your prized copy of the book, we thought we’d put together a list of similar titles for you to read!
If you’ve never heard of The Vanishing Half, no problem! The book stars Black twin sisters: one who lives as a Black woman in the town where they grew up, and the other who passes as white, with a white husband who has no idea she is Black. Both have children, and who knows what will happen when their lives intersect. This is a timely novel and deserves all of the praise it’s been getting, but it may be difficult to get your hands on it at the library any time soon.
Click any of the readalike book covers below to be taken to our catalog, where you can request a copy of the book with your library card number and PIN. We’ve also included links to our e-media services Overdrive and Hoopla where available. You can find The Vanishing Half on Overdrive here. We guarantee that any of the books below will come in faster!
We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
In a near-future South where an increasing number of people with dark skin endure cosmetic procedures to pass as white, a father embarks on an obsessive quest to protect his son, who bears a dark, spreading birthmark.
We Cast a Shadow Overdrive link
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Two half-sisters, unknown to each other, are born into different villages in 18th-century Ghana and experience profoundly different lives and legacies throughout subsequent generations marked by wealth, slavery, war, coal mining, the Great Migration and the realities of 20th-century Harlem.
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
Learning after a half-century of family life that their house on Detroit’s East Side is worth only a fraction of its mortgage, the members of the Turner family gather to reckon with their pasts and decide the house’s fate.
The Turner House Overdrive link
A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Explores the legacy of racial disparity in the South through the story of three generations of an African American family in New Orleans.
A Kind of Freedom Overdrive link
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
In 1980s Atlanta, James Witherspoon is living a double life. He has two families, a public one and a secret one. When the daughters from each family become friends, James’ secrets are revealed and lives are changed forever.
All plot summaries courtesy of Novelist.
Join us next week for another installment of the Virtual Book Club!
Read it or Weep 