Reviews tagging 'Deportation'

Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng

6 reviews

dananana's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Police brutality, Hate crime, Racism, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Sexual assault

Minor: Deportation

c_serpent's review against another edition

challenging emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Celeste Ng's writing remains delicious. 

I loved how Ng handled familial love in this. In that same vein, I love that even though Bird's mother and father were separated, they were in love. I think it would have been easier to write tension and resentment in there, and Ng didn't, and I love her for that. Sometimes, people are in love, and circumstance doesn't destroy that.

I love that Ng touched on the tensions between Asian and Black communities historically in the USA. I found her world believable, maybe too believable, but her writing was beautiful beautiful.  I wanted this book to end differently than it did. I like a story with a purely happy ending, which isn't what this was, although it remained hopeful, and for that it retains almost all stars.

One half star has been removed because ? It was very good, but it isn't a book I want to rate five stars, and these ratings are arbitrary. One star for yarn bombing, one star for Sadie, and two for Bird. 

Total score: 4.5/5 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Hate crime, Racism, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Police brutality

Minor: Deportation

celestialg's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

Didn’t speak to me as much as her previous books, but still an important read. Explores the ideas of a dystopian future but also, the dystopian happenings of now and of the past. A must read for someone hoping to read more racially diverse stories. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Hate crime, and Abandonment

Minor: Colonisation, Sexual violence, Deportation, Genocide, and Gun violence

whatwentsent's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Racial slurs, Gore, Death of parent, Police brutality, Racism, Xenophobia, Deportation, Physical abuse, Hate crime, Injury/injury detail, Child abuse, Classism, Violence, Death, Rape, and Forced institutionalization

kshertz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

This dystopian novel is only slightly dystopian at this point. Bird lost his Chinese mother because she was a poet whose poem was picked up to resist taking children away from their family and jailing anyone protesting. He goes on a quest to find her. She is fighting PACT, which feels like all the immigrant hating laws I’ve seen passed as well. I love that librarians again have to come in and try to save the day. This book is our future if we don’t protest and change. I couldn’t put it down. It was sad but necessary. It makes us remember what’s at stake. Read it

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Child abuse, Violence, Classism, Death, Deportation, Grief, Racism, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Sexual assault

laurenkimoto's review against another edition

emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Dear Ms. Ng,

Why did you have to emotionally destroy me? 

Regards,

A distraught reader 


Only complaint is the lack of quotation marks but in this book I can understand stylistically why it was done

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Classism, Cultural appropriation, Antisemitism, Bullying, Gaslighting, Murder, Cursing, Death, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Trafficking, War, Blood, Confinement, Deportation, Forced institutionalization, Colonisation, and Gun violence