Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - Our Missing Hearts

Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

98 reviews

gvstyris's review

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.5

For the first time in his life, he is unremarkable, and this feels like power.

Our Missing Hearts is quite a different read to Ng's first two novels, both of which I loved as a middle schooler for their slow pacing and rich character studies. Alternatively, Ng presents us here with a dystopian United States defined by anti-Asian legislation and discrimination -- which is to say, not particularly dystopian at all.

I struggled quite a bit for the first third of this book. Bird's perspective, although echoing a child's limited emotional intelligence, is a bit of a slog to read at times. I found Margaret's story much more compelling, but would ultimately argue that she suffers from a similar lack of development.

This novel is largely redeemed by its social commentary, which I'm excited to hear about from Ng herself at the Auckland Writers Festival in a few weeks.

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jennipea382's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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jaysaysnope's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

this is so well-written, but i am just losing my patience with creators trying to convince us that nonviolent protest will topple violent empires. also, super weird to me that IRL, the laws and public rhetoric about indoctrinating children with harmful ideas have most recently (and aggressively) been aimed at trans people, but there’s not a single mention of queerness in this book, let alone trans identity. understanding the intersections of oppression is more important now than ever.

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dblue236's review

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challenging dark sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.0

While this book is clearly a work of fiction, it's terrifying how little it feels it would take for the country I live in to be in exactly the situation described within it. It's not like we haven't more or less been there before. And the fact that it felt so plausible was the thing that stuck with me the most. The story in general was a bit slow moving, but the emotions it evoked made it well worth sitting through.

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metaphorsandmisc's review against another edition

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emotional sad 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

3.75

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language_loving_amateur's review against another edition

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challenging 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

5.0

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rachelle_reads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

This was hard to read not because of the prose or literary style, but because the subject matter hits so close to home. It’s not difficult to imagine this story happening in a U.S. a few years from now.

But oh, the subversive power of art. Of story. Of the written and spoken word. This is the kind of book that makes me want to read more and write more and make more music and be out in the world more, too.

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axel_p's review

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring slow-paced

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

3.0

This should be an A24 movie

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linatheteafairy's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective sad slow-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? Yes

3.75

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knkoch's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

I listened to the audiobook version of this, narrated by Lucy Liu, and it worked well for me in that format. It’s fast-paced, urgent, measured, well-structured, and contains no superfluous elements. The political dystopia it depicts feels extremely relevant, and the warmth of resistance throughout was well-executed. I would have gotten to this much sooner if I’d known it had this darker, urgent tone. Some of the fault lies with me never reading summaries, but the cover image (the feather on a pale blue background) also feels jarringly off. It gave me the impression this was a light, frothy story.

Celeste Ng is a master, unsurprisingly!

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