Reviews tagging 'Deportation'

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

10 reviews

jessiejonesbentley's review

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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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racial slurs, Racism, Classism, Xenophobia, Deportation, Grief, Abandonment, Hate crime, Police brutality, and Colonisation

zosiablue's review

hopeful sad tense 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

This was a near-future novel, with a VERY possible future, featuring an economic crisis that's blamed on China and in turn, brutalizes the AAPI community and their children. It's a lyrical book and a devastating subject matter. Some parts leaned too far into direct moralizing which got a little corny and took me out of the story, but it's such an important moral, anyway, and I hope people read this. It really hits home that children for ages have been forcefully taken from their loving families. Which I know but now I KNOW. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Classism, Deportation, Child abuse, Racial slurs, and Racism

Moderate: Bullying

kappafrog's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

How eerie reading this in between seeing headlines about book bans in Florida. This was a compelling dystopian novel. I agree with other reviewers that the second half struggled at times compared to the first half.

The conceit of Margaret narrating her whole life to Bird didn't always work when she was going into intimate details which were great for the reader but made less sense as dialogue with her son. I was also disappointed in the lack of information about the aftermath of Margaret's plan. We got a few flashforward glimpses but no information on the political fallout.

The writing was really beautiful. I liked seeing the world through Bird's eyes, a child's perspective in a novel aimed at adults. I enjoyed the use of folktales, etymology, and gardening through out. There were many horrifying bits in the book. I can tell it will stay with me for a long time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Xenophobia, Animal cruelty, Blood, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Animal death, Classism, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Violence, and Abandonment

Moderate: Bullying, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Trafficking, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Child abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Cursing, and Deportation

Minor: Alcohol, Chronic illness, Medical content, Rape, Sexual content, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Islamophobia, and Slavery

katrinky's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

not an easy book to read. imagine the handmaid's tale, but about anti-asian racism and xenophobia. the book touches on linguistics, guerilla art, including yarn bombs, and folklore, so of course I was compelled from start to finish. read it in 1.5 days, both of them work days, so that tells you something about the pace and the ease with which I got invested in bird, his mom, margaret, and their lives under PACT ACT America. chilling, maybe hopeful? mostly wary, and clear-eyed about America's worst propensities.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Colonisation, Deportation, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Child abuse, Grief, Racism, Xenophobia, Gaslighting, and Hate crime

Moderate: Blood, Death of parent, Death, and Abandonment

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

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

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

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