Our Missing Hearts: Reese's Book Club: A Novel

The book was beautifully written and a telling story of could possibly come if we are not diligent in our defense of democracy. It is also a loving story of the bond between families, mothers and children.

There is a long history of separating children from their parents and racist propaganda has often been at the root of these shameful, often hidden, abductions. This story is fiction but way too close to an authoritarian autocracy that suppresses any different ideas from the PACT patriotic platform. Told from individual children’s and parents’ perspectives, this story depicts how individuals can effect change. Ng can be verbose, my main complaint, but this book will stay with you as you remember the missing hearts of your own experiences.

Brilliant story, lovely writing. This is my second book of Ms. Ng’s and it affected me greatly. It’s a parable for our times, and for our lives in the US if a certain fascist becomes president again. Very scary stuff, very powerful.

Celeste Ng has delivered a dystopian novel in which a cultural Crisis is being opposed by a poet and network of librarians. It’s a narrative that clearly has little chance of being made into Marvel movie. We can be thankful for that. As unlikely as the premise may be, Ng sustains the idea capably through the first third of the book which is driven by a focus on a boy, Bird, who is trying to understand why his mother abandoned him, and why his father - a former linguistics professor- is so timid and cautious. As the narrative unfolds, we are drawn into Bird’s life and the mysteries surrounding his mother’s disappearance. It’s an engaging story about the authoritarian destruction of community and caring. Unfortunately, the narrative collapses under the weight of a lengthy retelling of how the Crisis came to be and how it led to Bird’s mother’s leaving him in order to protect him. A significant cause of the narrative collapse is Ng’s failure to sustain Bird’s mother’s voice. What is supposed to be her expiation to her young son reads more like an essay in the Atlantic. The problem I believe is that Bird’s mother has not been drawn finely enough. She is in many respects the most important character in the novel but we hardly know her. The words on the page never become her words, a mother’s words. What we do know about her is that she is smart and passionate about her cause and loves her son. She is also careful and methodical. That is important because those qualities make her fate in the novel seem very improbable. In the end there is no end. Hearts are still missing, but so is the ability to do anything more than say we are profoundly sad. Ng has, I believe, nailed our docility and lack of connection, but not, I believe as forcefully or as effectively as she might have.

This was my second book to read by Celeste Ng, and, while it had a different tone to Little Fires, it was equally good. The world in the book is dystopian and unnerving because of how close it is to our reality. Set against it is a story of a boy looking for his mother, and an insightful look into a relationship between a mother and a child. Very poignant and timely, Our Missing Hearts is a great read

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university 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 pulled 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.Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It’s a story about the power—and limitations—of art to create change, the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact.My Thoughts:There is something hollow and fearful about Our Missing Hearts as we begin the story of what life was like during the times after the “Crisis.” A time after a stringent law is passed (PACT) that focuses on people supposedly “Anti-American,” but who are mostly Asian. People whose ideas don’t jive with those who are more “in line” with American culture.Primarily we learn more about a family with a child named Bird, a mother who writes poetry but who incidentally is Asian, and a father who works in a library. What happens to this family hurts my heart, and I am feeling the angst of what can happen to families and people because of a law. An unjust law, in my opinion.Fearful of what might lie ahead for any of us kept me reading about these characters and how their lives were torn apart. And how dismantled shelves were the reminders of the books that some considered anti-American. My heart went out to what had become of these characters and what might become of any of us. 4.5 stars.***

This could be our everyday life...it is well written, but it pulls at the heart strings. Have tissue handy and enjoy!

Really tackles the problems we are facing today and is gripping throughoit

Didn’t want to buy this. It wasn’t MY sort of read at all. But fate would have it and I started to read and couldn’t pit it down.So different from the ‘who dunits’ that I usually read. So profound in it’s story-telling. I certainly recommend this book as something very special.

A very scary scenario, which happened in the past in the USA towards the Japanese, and which could happen again, because of big bad China. The judgemental and autocratic actions of governments is nothing to laugh off.

Beautiful, heartbreaking, incredible. Highly recommend.

I love dystopia because it explores political and social anguish. None of the problems in this novel are far fetched. You can imagine our society descending into racism and the restriction of our right to speak out. This novel is important because it tells us that individual protest is powerful. It tells us not to turn a blind eye but to speak out against oppression.It’s a sad story with moments of hope. Ng’s writing is poetic and intensely descriptive. Sometimes the description made me lose the threads of the story but I persevered because I wanted Bird to find his mother and reunite with his friend and his father. The relationship between Bird and his mother was lovely and complex. I felt terrified by the anonymous security who took children away and posed a constant, watchful threat.This novel has its roots in 1984, and A Handmaid’s Tale and Ng has used real events as inspiration for her plot. This novel is definitely one to read.

The story that shall stay with me. The book i shall recommend to all who think America is great. The imagination which may be too close to reality.