I just love cheap books. Especially because if I’ve never heard of them before, and I’m not expecting them to be good or bad, I can still get the book for two or three dollars. But when I saw The Other Half of my Heart, I knew it was going to be good. I also love books with a meaning behind their title, or cover, no matter how obvious it is. Obviously, The Other Half of my Heart is about friendship and family. And when I saw the cover, I knew it was about both… but also that a family doesn’t have to be one skin color.
This book really gave me some perspective in not only the struggle in race, but also the fact that these twins were born from the same mother and father, but one was black and one was white – and they both envy the other. I had seen twins like the main characters in the book, Minni and Keira, before – like Lucy and Maria or Kian and Remee, but I never thought about looking differently from my family, especially when it comes to the color of my skin.
I identify with White, or Caucasian, because that’s my skin tone, my heritage, the color of my family. I think kids from biracial, or “mixed” families have beautiful skin color, and I’m sure they are, and I certainly would be too, proud of their heritage. So it was a really neat perspective to read about two girls from a mixed family, with both White and Black heritage.
But then, even though they had both White and Black heritage, Minni was White and Kiera was Black. They didn’t look alike, they didn’t even look mixed, and people treated them differently. And then their grandmother wanted to enter the girls in a Miss Black Pearl Pageant. And that made Minni wonder if she was truly Black. Is the color of your skin determined by your heritage, or by your skin tone? People who saw Minni and didn’t know her mom and black and her dad was white assumed she was white, because her skin color was white. But Minni identified herself with black people as well, because she came from a partly black family.
This book really made me think of things I’d never really thought of before. I think everyone should read a book like this, because as a Christian, I know that we’re all brothers and sisters in Christ, and race shouldn’t matter, but in this world, to most people, it does, as unfortunate as it may be.
The Other Half of my Heart gets 5 stars!
This looks really good! 🙂 I’m definitely going to read it now.
Great! I love it! 🙂
This sounds like a beautiful book! It’s going straight to the top of my TBR list! I’d love to read the perspective of these girls thoughts and how they feel on the world treating them differently. I’m not exactly “white” I’m Mexican, but my skin tone isn’t tan, (usually on the summer time!) my skin tone is the very lightest shade of tan, sort of confusing but what can i do? 😉
My parents were born and raised in america but their parents where born and raised in mexico, so my parents are first generation mexican american.
Even though I’ve never been treated differently because of my haritage or color, i feeel like sometimes author’s do sometimes in books, even if they’re doing it self consiously.
Haven’t you ever thought about Ashley’s feelings in MDBC? I was always think about how she feels when megan and becca kind of drop her for the book club and don’t even bother to invite her, or how she must feel when she was megan and becca’s friend and they’re going on all sorts of places together, like a cruise or england or wyoming. It’s kind of strange that ashley happens to be the only girl “of color” there.
lol long comment again, anyway great post and i will defintly be getting this book.
That’s so cool!
I’ve noticed that, too. I have thought about how Ashley was feeling, I mean I would be pretty sad and a little ticked off. In the first book the fab four did everything together. Even when it dropped the the fab three (haha), Ashley and Becca and (I can’t even remember the other one’s name), did everything together. I didn’t know Ashley was the only girl “of color.” It still doesn’t change my feelings for her, but I guess it was only mentioned a few times and I forgot.
haha the other ones name was jen. and i think cassidy mentioned ashley is guatemalan, and her parents adopted her. this all goes on in the second book when the fab four are at cassidy’s house trying on clothes for the fashion show.
Oh, yeah! The 2nd one is my least favorite, so I think I only re-read it once, probably two years ago now. I need to read it again to remember it better!! 😀
I can see how biracial twins would have a pretty tough time because even though they’re related they look anything but related, and people do tend to treat others differently depending on how they look. It’s a sad but honest truth. The Other Half of My Heart sounds like a wonderful book. I love books that explore unique situations.
Same here. I bet you’d love it, Ana. 🙂
Hey, I’ve read this book. I think it’s really good. It puts so many things in perspective. You decribed it very well 🙂