Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

5 reviews

seethinglloron's review

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

What a beautiful story of love earned and love lost, of a war waged in silence and in public, of a mother and how dangerous she becomes when her child is in danger. Incredible. I cried and cried and cried, a statue standing alone in the street.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Police brutality, and Violence

Minor: Rape

daydreamdarling's review

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Xenophobia, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Kidnapping, Blood, Classism, Death, Murder, Police brutality, Violence, and Vomit

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

cocacolor's review

emotional inspiring sad 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? It's complicated

4.25

This is a difficult book to review; I was unbelievably excited for it as soon as I heard of it, and certainly part of the disappointment comes from how high my expectations were. It's not Ng's best effort. It's almost too timely; I don't think it'll hold up as well 25 or even 5 years from now (depending on how the political climate goes). And it's a book whose reception depends on the reader being exactly as far left as Ng, and no more. This novel's audience seems to be speaking to a particular demographic, the comfortable "moderate, don't-do-politics" upper middle class, particularly Asian American members; there's an almost cloying expectation that you empathize with Margaret and Bird's discoveries of all that's wrong in the world, because you've gone through a similar wake-up call yourself recently.

Personally, as a Chinese American reader who's probably farther left than Ng, I found it embarrassing. Part of the novel still feels, to me, like an attempt to co-opt the suffering of Black and Indigenous communities, an almost childish, cynical attempt to insist, "Hey, Asian Americans have it bad, too, where's our solidarity?" Eventually my attitude toward the premise mellowed; Ng does make a good-faith effort to acknowledge that if the state using family separation as a tactic is news to you, that's willful blindness on your part, and to include the history of how this violence has been and is still being used against Black and Indigenous families, even if I don't think she goes far enough in that respect to really acknowledge who is actually being subjected to this tactic today.

Beyond the somewhat disrespectful nature of the premise, I found that Ng's writing suffered as well from its clumsy politics. There's none of the complexity of character from LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE or EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU here;

Bird and Margaret and Ethan are almost saintly, the resentments disappearing easily, seeming betrayals turning out to be partnership and devotion after all.

The

sexual violence Margaret experiences at the hands of a cop

comes out of nowhere and feels like a cynical, clumsy shortcut to convey how bad the world has gotten--again, de-centering the Black and Indigenous women overwhelmingly affected by this kind of violence.

Still, Ng's half-hearted effort is beyond what most writers could achieve on their best day, and I don't want to hold Ng to a higher standard than I do her contemporaries; if I found OUR MISSING HEARTS to be clumsy or self-centered at times, I'd definitely feel the same and more of the vast majority of writers if they'd tried to write this novel. Her prose is as beautiful as ever, and understanding this novel is meant to be read as a fable about the power of art and narrative turns issues I'd had with the early parts of the book into unexpected joys. Overall, not as good as I hoped but not as bad as I feared. Still eagerly looking forward to Ng's next project.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Sexual violence, Animal cruelty, Racism, Racial slurs, Abandonment, Police brutality, and Rape

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Death of parent, and Misogyny

Minor: Child abuse and Bullying

Rape/sexual violence warning:

Margaret remembers a cop demanding sexual favors from her in exchange for leaving her alone;

the event is brief but explicit.

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