lauraschwemm's review
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
stationannie's review
2.0
This book is oh so very slow. At the beginning, it really felt like Ng was forcing her prose, which resulted in an unnatural flow.
For half of the book, I hemmed and hawed about DNFing it. I persevered in the hopes that it would get better. It finally did get better at Part II (around 44%), but then at the 80% mark, I started to get bored again. Then again at the 90% mark, I got back into it.
Since I haven’t read any other Celeste Ng books, I’m not sure if it was just this particular book that was tough to choke down. I’m curious to read her other 2 books to see if I will feel differently. With just this book under my belt, I can’t say that I’m super impressed.
I do like that Ng incorporated current events and historical context of violence again the Asian population. It was difficult at times to read it in the book because of how close to home it hits - especially with the uptick of it in recent years. I’m glad to see that Asian authors are using their platform to bring further awareness around it.
I won’t give up on her yet, but if you’re not a fan of slow-paced books, this book is not for you.
lola425's review
5.0
Read in prepub. Due out October 2022. My first 5 star review of the year.
Our Missing Hearts is a story that should be classified as dystopian but is so close to a reality that to call it that would diminish its impact. Ng has done something wonderful and heartbreaking with her third novel. She takes a mirror to our society, one that presents reality with just enough distortion to both reflect it and warp it into something unsettling but no less true.
The America of Our Missing Hearts is one that has been through a major social and financial crisis, one so bad that people are willing to give up their freedom, bury their humanity, and blame easy targets just to be able to return to “normal” and a government that saw that vulnerability and jumped on it.
In this society children can be taken away from their families simply because their parents are perceived as anti-government, for speaking their minds, for appearing insufficiently anti-Chinese, even for rubbing their neighbor the wrong way if they choose to report you. Margaret is an American poet of Chinese descent whose small book of poetry, written in the midst of her pregnancy, an ode to nature and motherhood, is taken up by a lone protester who is murdered during a protest against child separation. Margaret, whose method of getting through post-crisis life is to keep her head down and don’t attract attention, suddenly finds herself as the voice of a protest movement. “Our Missing Hearts”, a line from one of her poems, is taken up as the new subversive call for acts of protest throughout the country. In order to save her own son from being removed from his family, Margaret leaves her husband and young son, Bird, behind as she goes on the run. Bird, missing his mother, and forming a burgeoning awareness that there may be something wrong with the way he’s being taught to live, decides to find her and get answers to his questions.
Bird is Margaret’s missing heart, but he is also the missing heart of a society that values stability and jingoistic freedom over compassion and humanity. As you follow him on his search for his mother and learn her story, Bird (and others like him) feels like society’s greatest hope.
This book is about motherhood, and racial divides, about what words mean and what kind of power they have, about what difference one person can make and at what personal cost. In this world there are no heroes, there are just poets and librarians and protesters and children trying to make whatever part of this warped society that touches them a little better.
Ng describes a meeting between Margaret and the surviving parents of the protester who turned her life upside down. They are black, she is Asian and they struggle to form a connection. After a tiny breakthrough, Ng writes that it was, “a small tug at a complicated knot that would take generations to unpick”. Our Missing Hearts feels like Ng’s tug at that selfsame knot and it makes you feel, at least a little, that the knots that bind us can be loosened, word by word, pick by pick.
Our Missing Hearts is a story that should be classified as dystopian but is so close to a reality that to call it that would diminish its impact. Ng has done something wonderful and heartbreaking with her third novel. She takes a mirror to our society, one that presents reality with just enough distortion to both reflect it and warp it into something unsettling but no less true.
The America of Our Missing Hearts is one that has been through a major social and financial crisis, one so bad that people are willing to give up their freedom, bury their humanity, and blame easy targets just to be able to return to “normal” and a government that saw that vulnerability and jumped on it.
In this society children can be taken away from their families simply because their parents are perceived as anti-government, for speaking their minds, for appearing insufficiently anti-Chinese, even for rubbing their neighbor the wrong way if they choose to report you. Margaret is an American poet of Chinese descent whose small book of poetry, written in the midst of her pregnancy, an ode to nature and motherhood, is taken up by a lone protester who is murdered during a protest against child separation. Margaret, whose method of getting through post-crisis life is to keep her head down and don’t attract attention, suddenly finds herself as the voice of a protest movement. “Our Missing Hearts”, a line from one of her poems, is taken up as the new subversive call for acts of protest throughout the country. In order to save her own son from being removed from his family, Margaret leaves her husband and young son, Bird, behind as she goes on the run. Bird, missing his mother, and forming a burgeoning awareness that there may be something wrong with the way he’s being taught to live, decides to find her and get answers to his questions.
Bird is Margaret’s missing heart, but he is also the missing heart of a society that values stability and jingoistic freedom over compassion and humanity. As you follow him on his search for his mother and learn her story, Bird (and others like him) feels like society’s greatest hope.
This book is about motherhood, and racial divides, about what words mean and what kind of power they have, about what difference one person can make and at what personal cost. In this world there are no heroes, there are just poets and librarians and protesters and children trying to make whatever part of this warped society that touches them a little better.
Ng describes a meeting between Margaret and the surviving parents of the protester who turned her life upside down. They are black, she is Asian and they struggle to form a connection. After a tiny breakthrough, Ng writes that it was, “a small tug at a complicated knot that would take generations to unpick”. Our Missing Hearts feels like Ng’s tug at that selfsame knot and it makes you feel, at least a little, that the knots that bind us can be loosened, word by word, pick by pick.
sadhbhdunne's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
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
4.0
summer_reads1's review
5.0
Have you ever read a book that’s so good that you know as soon as you finish it that you will be instantly in a slump because nothing else will come close to the greatness that is your current read? Our Missing Hearts is that book.
Our Missing Hearts centers around Noah Gardner aka Bird, a 12-year-old boy who lives with his father who works at a university library. For a decade the family has been governed by new laws to preserve “American culture” the laws are known as PACT. Under this new law the government has the authority to remove children from their home, especially those of Asian origin, and relocate them. Libraries have also been forced to remove books that are deemed unpatriotic, including the books written by Bird’s mother Margaret. Margaret left the family 3 years ago for unknown reasons and even though he’s been told by his father to disavow his Mother and her anti-PACT writings, Bird cannot help but think of her from time to time. One day Bird receives a mysterious letter from his mother that contains only a puzzling drawing, Bird goes on a mission to find the meaning of the drawing and to find his mother.
The story is told in three parts through Bird’s and Margaret’s point of views.
The words I would use to describe Our Missisng Hearts are horrifying, poignant deeply profound, harrowing, soul stirring and beautiful. But most of all, this is a story that makes you think. The book is set in a dystopian future of what I would describe as The Handmaid's tale meets Fahrenheit 451.
There are so many underlying themes and messages in Our Missing Hearts. This is a cautionary tale on what the banning of books could lead to and it is also a love letter to libraries and how they truly are a necessity to outr society. It’s a story about parents specifically a mother’s never-ending love for her child and the length that mothers will go to to ensure their safety. Also, Our Missing Hearts exemplifies the power of our voice and the importance of speaking up for those who can’t.
As a mother myself this story is absolutely terrifying. I could not imagine living in fear everyday of my life that my child would be unfairly taken from me and too see the children of other families being torn from them.
The characters, plot, setting were all beautifully written. Celeste Ng is truly one of the greatest authors of our time. Just like Little Fires Everywhere, I see Our Missing Hearts becoming a modern classic. I see it as a book being read and talked about decades from now. I've read all three of Celeste Ng’s books and I have to say Our Missing Hearts is her best work yet. I highly recommend giving this one a read!
I listened to the audiobook version of Our Missing Hearts. It is narrated by the phenomenal Lucy Liu(yes the actress)! If you do decide to read this one or listen to the audiobook version, read/listen to the Authors note at the end to learn about the horrifying real-life stories that Celeste Ng drew inspiration from.
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng was published on October 4, 2023 so it is available now! A massive that is to Libro Fm, Penguin Random House m Audio, and Penguin Press for the gifted copy!
jacss's review
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
I always enjoy Celeste Ng's works and this didn't break that pattern.
Guised as a simple novel about a mother that left her child, and a father that wants nothing to do with said mother, is a solid piece of protest literature.
*From here on spoilers*
PACT, a governmental organization getting power from it's "see something, say something" motto, as well as social control over society, was able to rebuild society for the most part, but any means for common ground need a scapegoat, and the (American) Asian community already fit their purpose.
Protesting against PACT, even peacefully, meant death in some cases, or the removal of children away from their parents as a way to deter people from protesting in many other cases.
Three years after the main character's mother leaves, he recieves a clue and goes looking for her. The first part of the book being from his perspective shows the anguish of a young teen seperated from his mom, struggling with the nonchalance of his father and the friendship with Sadie, a re-homed teen who is set to find the truth. In the end, he finds his mom.
This came up to the second part, in which it tells the story from the mother's point of view, from the crisis, to the use of her poem as resistance motto, to her fleeing her house, husband and child for the sake of said child. In this part, it becomes clear she is up to something, by planting small electrical items in bottle caps and planting them all over New York.
The final part is the execution of the plan: each bottle cap contains a speaker through which she tells the stories of the lost children, specifically pieces the parents of said children told her, when she sought them out. The stories are played throughout the city.
This novel really touches upon the dystopian horrors of today (as well as in the too recent past): Children being seperated at borders of countries; bodies being found of Indigenous children at "boarding schools"; as well as the simple fact that people are not only struggling to make ends meet, they are struggling to even make it to the end of the week.
Finding truth in the libraries and what the libraries do (match up seperated children's profiles to possible sighted children), was a bonus for me. They are, in my mind, truly the last places of safe haven where you do not need to buy anything to be allowed to stay.
Guised as a simple novel about a mother that left her child, and a father that wants nothing to do with said mother, is a solid piece of protest literature.
*From here on spoilers*
Spoiler
In this world, the Crisis had wrecked havoc on America. With people with lower to middle incomes losing jobs, being evicted from their homes and their communities, those in power (the rich, the politicians) convinced a nation that the fault wasn't in policy, legislation or capitalism (oh no, never!), but in the Asian minority.PACT, a governmental organization getting power from it's "see something, say something" motto, as well as social control over society, was able to rebuild society for the most part, but any means for common ground need a scapegoat, and the (American) Asian community already fit their purpose.
Protesting against PACT, even peacefully, meant death in some cases, or the removal of children away from their parents as a way to deter people from protesting in many other cases.
Three years after the main character's mother leaves, he recieves a clue and goes looking for her. The first part of the book being from his perspective shows the anguish of a young teen seperated from his mom, struggling with the nonchalance of his father and the friendship with Sadie, a re-homed teen who is set to find the truth. In the end, he finds his mom.
This came up to the second part, in which it tells the story from the mother's point of view, from the crisis, to the use of her poem as resistance motto, to her fleeing her house, husband and child for the sake of said child. In this part, it becomes clear she is up to something, by planting small electrical items in bottle caps and planting them all over New York.
The final part is the execution of the plan: each bottle cap contains a speaker through which she tells the stories of the lost children, specifically pieces the parents of said children told her, when she sought them out. The stories are played throughout the city.
This novel really touches upon the dystopian horrors of today (as well as in the too recent past): Children being seperated at borders of countries; bodies being found of Indigenous children at "boarding schools"; as well as the simple fact that people are not only struggling to make ends meet, they are struggling to even make it to the end of the week.
Finding truth in the libraries and what the libraries do (match up seperated children's profiles to possible sighted children), was a bonus for me. They are, in my mind, truly the last places of safe haven where you do not need to buy anything to be allowed to stay.
lynnnn's review
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? No
4.0
bookishlymonique's review
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
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? Yes
5.0
ailm04's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
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