The Vanishing Half: Shortlisted for the Women's Prize 2021

She really did believe that marriage would obliterate her. She would be crushed, she would be nullified, she would

“She’s running away,” Emeline said. But Sylvie suspected her sister was running toward something. A new life. Julia wanted to reimagine herself, and it was hard to do that in the presence of people who had known her since she was a small girl.

And so she’d be cool, because that’s what mistresses were. Mistress, Sadie thought. Sadie laughed a bit to herself, thinking this was what it was like to play someone else’s game: to have the illusion of choice, without actual choice.

She couldn’t fathom that others did not see her for what she would become, that she did not wear the fact of her future like some eye-catching garment. Her belief that she would fly saturated her world, presented an appearance of absolute truth.