The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Brit Bennett writes convincingly and honestly about situations that arise in the Black community.  In her first book, The Mothers, she covers the very caring church mothers who sometimes overstep their boundaries in relating to the young people...with some judging and outspokenness.  In The Vanishing Half, Bennett tackles "Passing".  

The Vigne twins were inseparable growing up in the tiny town of Mallard, Kentucky where the whole Black community was light-skinned.  The problem was that the community totally looked down on darker skinned African Americans.  After watching their father's murder by white men, Desiree and Stella, become more and more convinced that they need to get away from this town.  So they disappear...away from the town, away from their mom, away from the bad memories.  Desiree, stubborn and resilient, chooses to marry a very dark black man; probably an unconscious decision to be her own person and not let the voices from her past control her...but it backfires when his abusive rage explodes.  Desiree and her young daughter flee back to Mallard.  Stella chooses another life entirely...passing as white.  She disappears from New Orleans where she and Desiree had started a new life, and walks into a white world where no one ever knows who she really is.

This was an intriguing read about family choices: leaving the past totally behind, never having another person to confide in fully, caring more about the carefully crafted life created than about the mother and sister who were left behind to mourn her.  But, was the cost of Stella's decision worth her pretend life?