Her second novel, The Vanishing Half (2020), was also a New York Times best-seller, and was chosen as a Good Morning America Book Club selection.

at Michigan, Bennett's 2014 essay for Jezebel, "I Don't Know What to Do With Good White People"[2] gained considerable attention, generating over one million views in three days.

[6] Vogue said Bennett's nonfiction essays "recall Ta-Nehisi Coates [with] a similar ability to contextualize the present moment in a bigoted past.

[17] The Washington Post called The Vanishing Half a "fierce examination of contemporary passing and the price so many pay for a new identity.

"[18] Within a month of publication it was reported that HBO had acquired the rights for "low seven-figures" to develop a limited series, with Bennett as executive producer.