Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

12 reviews

axel_p's review

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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Content Warnings

Minor: Bullying, Kidnapping, Xenophobia, Classism, Violence, Death of parent, Deadnaming, Gaslighting, Police brutality, Abandonment, Child abuse, Death, Forced institutionalization, Hate crime, Racism, Racial slurs, War, Confinement, and Panic attacks/disorders

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

kellyofcali's review

dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

Admittedly, I was trapped on a plane when I read this, but I also read ALL of it in one plane ride - I found it really haunting and timely and beautiful. The author does a wonderful job painting a world close enough to ours where it's quite frightening - it feels like a place we could easily go from where we are now - yet also instilling hope, and hope that comes so much from peace and art, which sings to my soul. Hard, difficult, and yet not totally crushing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment and Xenophobia

Moderate: Bullying, Violence, Racism, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Grief, and Gaslighting

Minor: Police brutality, Kidnapping, and Forced institutionalization

heatherjchin's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Grief, Hate crime, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Racism, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Trafficking and Kidnapping

Minor: Pregnancy, Blood, Gore, Animal death, and Bullying

amanda_reads13's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad slow-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? Yes

3.0

Bird has never known a life without PACT (Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act). It is effects every part of his life. At 12, he lives with his white father, who works at the university's library. His mother, a Chinese American poet, disappeared 3 years ago. One day he receives a drawing from her in the mail. This drawing leads him to discover her whereabouts. 

After reconnecting, Margaret shares her story with Bird and the reason why she had to leave. Margaret is faced with such a difficult choice, wanting to be with her son but also wanting to fight for all the stolen children. In the end she chose to fight for the children and sacrificed herself. 

I am glad we eventually got Ethan's POV, because the whole time Bird was with his mom, I kept thinking about how frantic his father must have been. 

This book dives into many social issues and there is a clear parallel between events in this book and many real world events. 
-With PACT, anything deemed anti-american is destroyed (drawing a parallel to the Nazis)
-Children are removed from homes with parents who are deemed sympathizers or unamerican (ie. residential schools, migrants)
-Racism and prejudice of Chinese Americans (ie. Japanese during WW2)
-Margarets parents just wanting to blend with their white neighbours
-Riots, protests, police brutality

Though this book discussed some very pressing issues, it felt a little flat for me. The pacing was very slow and the characters felt a little one dimensional. I was hoping to be hit with this incredible dystopian world, but I never felt fully emersed into it. Everything felt very detached from our main character, all of these things were happening around him, but he was never really a part of anything, never really experiencing anything. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Grief, Gun violence, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Gaslighting, Hate crime, and Racism

write2run's review

dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Hate crime, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Racism, Kidnapping, Violence, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Child abuse, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, Cursing, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, and Confinement

vedpears's review

adventurous dark emotional 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

I think this may be my favorite book I read all year.
This should be considered an instant classic and to me is on par with 1984 and Animal Farm. Cautionary tales warning us all of the potential consequences if politics and media, and thus culture, continues on a certain trajectory. 
It is incredible how many parts of Ng's book became reality while she was writing it. So many moments in this book have clear parallels in reality now, unfortunately. I hope we can turn American culture around and stop accepting the blind hate being paraded as patriotism. 

I do have a favorite quote from this book - ""...unity required a common enemy. One box in which to collect all their anger. One strawman to wear the hats of everything they feared." This has been a worry of mine for a long time. Growing up here, it seemed really obvious to me that Americans need an enemy outside of us to focus on in order to come together and see one another as neighbors, or else we turn on each other. That is how our nation was born, so I suppose it makes sense that it is really hard for us to break away from that and learn healthier relationship skills, as a nation. 

I feel this should be required reading. 
Celeste Ng has solidified herself as my favorite modern day author.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Trafficking, Xenophobia, Violence, Gaslighting, Grief, Hate crime, Racism, Racial slurs, Abandonment, Kidnapping, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Police brutality, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Stalking, Bullying, Classism, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Confinement, Gun violence, and Sexual assault

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

swaanderer's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

Beautiful, heart-wrenching, disturbing, hopeful. And Lucy Liu's audiobook narration was perfect.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia

Moderate: Police brutality, Death of parent, Racial slurs, Violence, Grief, and Gaslighting

Minor: Sexual assault and Kidnapping

forced removal of children

state-sponsored violence

fascism

catorureads's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Grief, Racism, Gaslighting, Xenophobia, and Police brutality