Homegoing vs The Vanishing Half: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: African American, Literary, Historical Fiction, History, Fiction
Homegoing
“The night Effia Otcher was born into the musky heat of Fanteland, a fire raged through the woods just outside her father’s compound.”
Homegoing is the debut historical fiction novel by Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi, published in 2016. Each chapter in the novel follows a different descendant of an Asante woman named Maame, starting with her two…
vs
The Vanishing Half
Brit Bennett’s chart topping novel, The Vanishing Half, is a story that tracks the lives of twin African American twin sisters who, after witnessing the murder of their father, run away at age 16. One sister begins…
The verdict
- Readers rate Homegoing highest: Homegoing 4.5 · The Vanishing Half 4.1.
- The Vanishing Half has the widest readership — 880862 ratings behind its score.
How to choose
Scores by source
| Homegoing | The Vanishing Half | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | — | 4.1 (880862) |
| Hardcover | 5.0 (1) | 4.2 (745) |
| Google Books | 4.5 (3) | 5.0 (1) |
| Apple Books | 4.5 (1890) | 4.0 (7574) |
Reception
| Homegoing | The Vanishing Half | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 1890 | 880862 |
| Editions | 32 | 16 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Wikipedia attention | 5134 | 3614 |
| Pages | 320 | 376 |