crownoflaurel's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment
Moderate: Xenophobia and Racism
Minor: Hate crime, Death of parent, and Police brutality
dananana's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Police brutality, Hate crime, Racism, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Sexual assault
Minor: Deportation
emtees's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
slow-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? Yes
4.5
Our Missing Hearts is a slow burn of a book. It dragged for me a bit in the beginning, left me unsure and a little uncomfortable in the middle, but landed with a punch in the end.
Bird is a 12 year old boy living in a United States where, for ten years, the set of laws known as PACT, which make any words or behavior deemed unpatriotic illegal, has ruled his life. He and his father live a restricted, careful life, working at all times to appear unremarkable. Though they don’t talk about it, Bird knows this is because his mother, Margaret, who disappeared years ago, is associated with anti-PACT protestors; “bring back our missing hearts,” the slogan of these protesters, referencing the children seized from the homes of “un-American” parents, is adapted from one of her poems. Bird doesn’t know how to reconcile the idea of a woman leading a clandestine battle against the government with the creative, loving mother who made his childhood into a fairytale of games and stories. But when he receives a mysterious postcard from her, the first contact in three years, he sets out on a journey to track her down and learn the truth of her life.
This is a book that builds slowly, and in my opinion only gets better as it does. It begins by immersing the reader in the world of Bird, one where government propaganda in schools and fear of the authorities at home is normal. This isn’t a futuristic dystopia - other than the constant recitations of PACT’s promises in school, it’s not very different from American life in 2023 - and so the differences only seep in slowly, eerie and disturbing against the backdrop of normalacy, like the protest art that appears, unexpected and unexplained, on the college campus where Bird lives. (Which is Harvard. For some reason, the book goes out of its way not to say the name of the school, but if you know the area, that’s it.) Later, in telling Margaret’s journey from an ambitious college poet to a content stay-at-home mother to the face of a movement, Ng takes us back to a world that is our own and charts how it could have made the journey to fascism and fear. In doing so, she makes the smart decision to stick close to her characters. There are massive federal and international powers behind the changes this society undergoes, but we don’t see them; instead, we stick with Margaret and her peers, ordinary people, and see the ways their changing society didn’t impact them at all, until it did and it was too late to stop it. This is both emotionally effective - Ng is writing about the way injustice hurts individuals, families, children - and perhaps papers over a few places where the world building is simplified to get the story to where it needs to go.
The character work is mostly very strong in this book. Ethan and Margaret, Bird’s parents, are both carefully drawn characters. We see them first through the eyes of their young son, adults, fully formed and set in their ways; later, when we hear their story in full, it is easy to see the line between the characters they really are and who Bird perceived them to be while still acknowledging the way a child’s view simplified them. Many other side characters - Sadie, Bird’s friend, one of the children taken from the home of parents deemed unfit to raise her; Domi, Margaret’s friend; the librarians who are the secret heroes of this world - come to life with only a few lines. By contrast, I have to say that Bird himself was the weakest character. In the early pages of the book, he comes across as extremely young - I was actually a little surprised to realize he was twelve, since his perspective seems to be one of someone who doesn’t understand what’s going on around him. And yet he accomplishes frankly incredible things on his journey to find his mother. It’s the kind of unlikely combination of innocence and extreme competence that you find in children’s books but it was a bit jarring in an adult novel.
The building of this alternative world is interesting. The world of PACT is one in which a devastating financial crisis, believed by some to have been instigated by China, leads to a huge uptick in anti-Asian sentiment in the US. While obviously this will resonate after COVID, there is a risk in telling a story about prejudice and injustice that relies on fictional events while set the real world, where real injustice still exists. In the early pages of the book, I was concerned that this new source of racism and fear would swamp the real experiences of a variety of people who experience prejudice in this world. But it is clear that Ng was aware of these concerns and wove them into her world. As the story continues, she ties the fictional events to the real-world history of racism, government persecution, and particularly the threat of taking children from “undesirable” families, whether that’s the existence of schools to reeducate indigenous children or the modern foster care system. There is clearly deep thought and a very realistic eye behind this story.
The book did not end as I expected it to but it did end powerfully, if in a quieter way. It was hopeful without being unrealistic, unsettling but also meaningful.
Bird is a 12 year old boy living in a United States where, for ten years, the set of laws known as PACT, which make any words or behavior deemed unpatriotic illegal, has ruled his life. He and his father live a restricted, careful life, working at all times to appear unremarkable. Though they don’t talk about it, Bird knows this is because his mother, Margaret, who disappeared years ago, is associated with anti-PACT protestors; “bring back our missing hearts,” the slogan of these protesters, referencing the children seized from the homes of “un-American” parents, is adapted from one of her poems. Bird doesn’t know how to reconcile the idea of a woman leading a clandestine battle against the government with the creative, loving mother who made his childhood into a fairytale of games and stories. But when he receives a mysterious postcard from her, the first contact in three years, he sets out on a journey to track her down and learn the truth of her life.
This is a book that builds slowly, and in my opinion only gets better as it does. It begins by immersing the reader in the world of Bird, one where government propaganda in schools and fear of the authorities at home is normal. This isn’t a futuristic dystopia - other than the constant recitations of PACT’s promises in school, it’s not very different from American life in 2023 - and so the differences only seep in slowly, eerie and disturbing against the backdrop of normalacy, like the protest art that appears, unexpected and unexplained, on the college campus where Bird lives. (Which is Harvard. For some reason, the book goes out of its way not to say the name of the school, but if you know the area, that’s it.) Later, in telling Margaret’s journey from an ambitious college poet to a content stay-at-home mother to the face of a movement, Ng takes us back to a world that is our own and charts how it could have made the journey to fascism and fear. In doing so, she makes the smart decision to stick close to her characters. There are massive federal and international powers behind the changes this society undergoes, but we don’t see them; instead, we stick with Margaret and her peers, ordinary people, and see the ways their changing society didn’t impact them at all, until it did and it was too late to stop it. This is both emotionally effective - Ng is writing about the way injustice hurts individuals, families, children - and perhaps papers over a few places where the world building is simplified to get the story to where it needs to go.
The character work is mostly very strong in this book. Ethan and Margaret, Bird’s parents, are both carefully drawn characters. We see them first through the eyes of their young son, adults, fully formed and set in their ways; later, when we hear their story in full, it is easy to see the line between the characters they really are and who Bird perceived them to be while still acknowledging the way a child’s view simplified them. Many other side characters - Sadie, Bird’s friend, one of the children taken from the home of parents deemed unfit to raise her; Domi, Margaret’s friend; the librarians who are the secret heroes of this world - come to life with only a few lines. By contrast, I have to say that Bird himself was the weakest character. In the early pages of the book, he comes across as extremely young - I was actually a little surprised to realize he was twelve, since his perspective seems to be one of someone who doesn’t understand what’s going on around him. And yet he accomplishes frankly incredible things on his journey to find his mother. It’s the kind of unlikely combination of innocence and extreme competence that you find in children’s books but it was a bit jarring in an adult novel.
The building of this alternative world is interesting. The world of PACT is one in which a devastating financial crisis, believed by some to have been instigated by China, leads to a huge uptick in anti-Asian sentiment in the US. While obviously this will resonate after COVID, there is a risk in telling a story about prejudice and injustice that relies on fictional events while set the real world, where real injustice still exists. In the early pages of the book, I was concerned that this new source of racism and fear would swamp the real experiences of a variety of people who experience prejudice in this world. But it is clear that Ng was aware of these concerns and wove them into her world. As the story continues, she ties the fictional events to the real-world history of racism, government persecution, and particularly the threat of taking children from “undesirable” families, whether that’s the existence of schools to reeducate indigenous children or the modern foster care system. There is clearly deep thought and a very realistic eye behind this story.
The book did not end as I expected it to but it did end powerfully, if in a quieter way. It was hopeful without being unrealistic, unsettling but also meaningful.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Abandonment, Racism, and Xenophobia
The world is built on racism and xenophobia, primarily against Asians and Asian-Americans. The plot involves a mother abandoning her child for his own good and the complex feelings that evokes.wistfulspirit's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Xenophobia and Racism
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
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Hate crime, Racism, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Police brutality
Minor: Deportation
laurynsmith's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
The beginning when we were in Bird’s POV was so interesting and then we switched focus to the mother and then I immediately got bored for the rest of the book :/
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia
lil_owl_reads's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-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
4.25
I have always been a fan of Celeste Ng’s work, but this really blew me away, primarily because it was so different than what she had written before. The world she creates is scarily similar to ours, so realistically constructed that it’s creativity is frightening. This story beautifully paints what it means to love family, to love a mother and a child, to have families torn apart, and how slippery the slope is to full-blown authoritarianism. Love Ng. Love this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia
erica_lannan's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-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? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia
Moderate: Trafficking, Abandonment, and Hate crime
seaschells's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
sad
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? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, and Xenophobia
kelly_e's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-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
Title: Our Missing Hearts
Author: Celeste Ng
Genre: Dystopian
Rating: 3.75
Pub Date: October 4, 2022
T H R E E • W O R D S
Contemplative • Forceful • Moving
📖 S Y N O P S I S
Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in Harvard University's library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve "American culture" in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic-including the work of Bird's mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.
Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn't know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn't wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is drawn into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.
💭 T H O U G H T S
I had been hesitating on picking up Our Missing Hearts since it's release last fall, mostly because dystopian novels aren't ones I typically gravitate towards. And while, I don't regret reading it, it is certainly my least favourite of Celeste Ng's books.
I must start off by saying, as always, Celeste's writing is absolutely beautiful! It's complex, layered and deeply evocative. And while, this book tackles a lot - including themes of family and sacrifice, as well as library resistance, racially motivated injustice, and the removal of children as a means of political powers - this dystopian novel tis an ode to motherhood.
When it comes to the characters, I'd have liked significantly more character development. Each of the characters felt very one dimensional, verging on young adult. Additionally, I didn't necessarily connect with the mother at all, even though I found her sacrifice to be selfless. I did have a soft spot for Bird as he'd gone through so much at such a young age.
When it comes to style, one of my biggest pet peeves is when no quotation marks are used, which was the case here. I know this is a stylistic tool used by authors, but it's just one I cannot get behind as I find it disrupts the flow of my reading. For this reason, I had to switch to mainly the audio (where you don't notice this fact), and the audio is very well done.
At the end of the day, Our Missing Hearts verged on being a little too political for me at this point in time. It is a beautiful reflection on motherhood, and a book to spark discussion and shift perspectives. Overall, the premise was certainly intriguing, but the execution was lacking. And yet, I'll continue to read everything Celeste Ng writes simply because her writing is a gift.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• readers who enjoy stories of motherhood
• Celeste Ng fans
• bookclubs
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"If we fear something, it is all the more imperative we study it thoroughly."
"Who ever thinks, recalling the face of the one they loved who is gone: yes, I looked at you enough, I loved you enough, we had enough time, any of this was enough?"
Author: Celeste Ng
Genre: Dystopian
Rating: 3.75
Pub Date: October 4, 2022
T H R E E • W O R D S
Contemplative • Forceful • Moving
📖 S Y N O P S I S
Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in Harvard University's library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve "American culture" in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic-including the work of Bird's mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.
Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn't know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn't wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is drawn into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.
💭 T H O U G H T S
I had been hesitating on picking up Our Missing Hearts since it's release last fall, mostly because dystopian novels aren't ones I typically gravitate towards. And while, I don't regret reading it, it is certainly my least favourite of Celeste Ng's books.
I must start off by saying, as always, Celeste's writing is absolutely beautiful! It's complex, layered and deeply evocative. And while, this book tackles a lot - including themes of family and sacrifice, as well as library resistance, racially motivated injustice, and the removal of children as a means of political powers - this dystopian novel tis an ode to motherhood.
When it comes to the characters, I'd have liked significantly more character development. Each of the characters felt very one dimensional, verging on young adult. Additionally, I didn't necessarily connect with the mother at all, even though I found her sacrifice to be selfless. I did have a soft spot for Bird as he'd gone through so much at such a young age.
When it comes to style, one of my biggest pet peeves is when no quotation marks are used, which was the case here. I know this is a stylistic tool used by authors, but it's just one I cannot get behind as I find it disrupts the flow of my reading. For this reason, I had to switch to mainly the audio (where you don't notice this fact), and the audio is very well done.
At the end of the day, Our Missing Hearts verged on being a little too political for me at this point in time. It is a beautiful reflection on motherhood, and a book to spark discussion and shift perspectives. Overall, the premise was certainly intriguing, but the execution was lacking. And yet, I'll continue to read everything Celeste Ng writes simply because her writing is a gift.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• readers who enjoy stories of motherhood
• Celeste Ng fans
• bookclubs
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"If we fear something, it is all the more imperative we study it thoroughly."
"Who ever thinks, recalling the face of the one they loved who is gone: yes, I looked at you enough, I loved you enough, we had enough time, any of this was enough?"
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia, Bullying, Violence, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, and Hate crime
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Abandonment, Classism, Child abuse, and Kidnapping
Minor: Death, Death of parent, Grief, and Sexual assault