Reviews with content warning for Hate crime - Our Missing Hearts

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Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

109 reviews

jg34's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Heartbreaking but oh so real. This is dystopian but a reality we can all easily imagine becoming true as it’s inspired by real practices. Beautifully done

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knkoch's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

I listened to the audiobook version of this, narrated by Lucy Liu, and it worked well for me in that format. It’s fast-paced, urgent, measured, well-structured, and contains no superfluous elements. The political dystopia it depicts feels extremely relevant, and the warmth of resistance throughout was well-executed. I would have gotten to this much sooner if I’d known it had this darker, urgent tone. Some of the fault lies with me never reading summaries, but the cover image (the feather on a pale blue background) also feels jarringly off. It gave me the impression this was a light, frothy story.

Celeste Ng is a master, unsurprisingly!

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bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Immediately pulled in! I loved Ng’s two other books and she’s definitely an auto buy author now.

I did have to get used to the lack of quotation marks. I also found that the chapters could be a little long for my personal taste, but sometimes the story held my focus that they went by quickly. The story itself is Heartbreaking and inspiring! I loved the complex characters and getting to know them throughout the novel. I also loved Ng’s prose as always; there were plenty of lines I was struck by, reread, and wanted to highlight (but couldn’t because I read a library copy)!

Although the events of the book are fiction, there were a lot of parallels to what we have seen both in the past and the present. I highly recommend Our Missing Hearts if you enjoy dystopian novels, literary prose, and/or complex characters!

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alimackenzie's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

3/3.5 stars. I may change this as I sit with it more, but right now this is how I’m feeling. It’s unfortunate as the subject matter is so important and timely, and I LOVED her other books, but this one just felt “meh” in the end for me.

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jessiejonesbentley's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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adragoninspace's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

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bookswithisabel's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective sad

4.5

*4.5 stars
Ugh I just love Celeste Ng, this was so good but heartbreaking, as all of her books are. No spoilers, but as an aspiring librarian/archivist the role that librarians and libraries played in this story made me so emotional. 🤍

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vanessagrausam's review against another edition

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hopeful sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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jesstaurant's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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basil_touche's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I wouldn't say this is ground breaking, but it feels very personal and raw; about injustice and xenophobia and individuals trying to make change in a world that sees them as the other. It's a narrative very much focused on love and grief, inspired by real world events (I appreciate that the author left an afterword referencing the books she used for research).

Something about the pacing and some character writing didn't really work for me but it has left me thinking, and that is more than I can say about a lot of books.

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