Amazon.ca:Customer reviews: Our Missing Hearts: A Novel

Top positive review

Orwellian-like tale of what has been and what may become

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on December 23, 2022

Scary to think this is not far from reality. When lives are stressful or disappointing, there is a tendency to find a scapegoat. While it does occur in the world, let’s hope our society has learned enough from past history to prevent this from becoming pervasive.

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Steve

Good story but

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 16, 2022

Not my favourite writing style. Not a fan of dialogue in the style.
The start is slow, part 2 is great and part 3 a bit anticlimactic. Would give a four except for dialogue style.

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From Canada

Steve

Good story but

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 16, 2022

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Not my favourite writing style. Not a fan of dialogue in the style.
The start is slow, part 2 is great and part 3 a bit anticlimactic. Would give a four except for dialogue style.

One person found this helpful

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DomeniqueCY

Not Her Best

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 4, 2023

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For those of you who read my reviews, and I know you exist cause I got the stats, this series of reviews is a long time coming.

We had an aggressively long holiday break this year, so I decided to get to books I had put off reading, and I went on a theme: blockbuster authors and their pandemic novels. I read in a spring between December 23rd and Jan 3rd Elizabeth's Strout's "Lucy by the Sea", Celeste Ng's "Our Missing Hearts" and Gary Shteyngart's "Our Country Friends". The following is a comparative review based on this sprint. I will say when I started reviewing books in 2019, I had one kid and I could never imagine having three or that there would be a pandemic, or that it would become a trope or device, like "Outsider at Boarding School" or "Something Magical on the Cape" but here we are, 2 more kids and a pandemic later.

I am starting with the book I liked the least. " Our Missing Hearts". I didn't hate it, but of the three this one was the most disappointing. I love Celeste Ng, and have read her other works, and usually find her to be a lovely reflection of alot of social issues, but she took the pandemic as a catalyst for a somewhat dystopian future. Not like "Fahrenheit 451" terrible, but pretty bad nonetheless, and this one focuses around anti-asian sentiments. Fair enough it's real, even without the dystopia element, but what I disliked most about it was there were editing errors that too me out of the novel, specifically on 103 and 251. I won't reveal them, but uhhh one was so simple. There were also massive plot holes. It's like they rushed to get the novel out. There were also a lot of allusions to other works, specifically "The Library Book" , a piece of non-fiction, which I actually read, and there were some lines that seemed particularly pulled directly from this other one. There is this section where Bird's father is describing the library and he talks about the stacks and skeleton of the building, and It was a line specifically used in this other work. Also when they talk about libraries and smokers... It's not plagiarism, it was clear they were references, it was just weak editing. Not her best.

6 people found this helpful

R. Frank

Our missing brains

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 12, 2022

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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.

35 people found this helpful

COS

Loved Celeste NG but just not this

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 7, 2023

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I struggled to ready 1/3 and had t give up. Disappointing as I have read, and thoroughly enjoyed her other books.

Amazon Customer

our missing hearts

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 11, 2022

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Great premise. Shocking but unfortunately conceivable given the right circumstances. Opening part movingly told re. Bird and Ethan’s relationship.
Next part: the relation of M’s story dull as mostly just ‘told’. Bird a lovely character feisty but gentle. A bit of his father and a bit of his mother. Sadie by her resilience defiance and courage is a character to admire and also her situation as a ‘removed’ child is so very very sad. The inferences of racism are shocking but sadly all too believable. As is people’s willingness to report on their neighbours.: Especially when people are put in a position where to be brave is dangerous. History has shown us that many times & still does today.

4 people found this helpful

Tracey O'Connell

excellent writing. super sad.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 23, 2023

Verified Purchase

I love Celeste Ng's work. This was just too hard to read given that it's futuristic bent is already our present. Left me feeling hopeless.

Amazon Customer

Meh

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 16, 2022

Verified Purchase

I loved Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere, so I was super excited for another one of her books to release. However, I wasn’t impressed with this one. It was okay…but definitely not one that I would recommend to anyone and everyone to read like I did her others. I think the premise of the book had a lot of potential—especially given the political events that have happened in the US over the last 5-10 years—but the story fell flat for me. The characters didn’t seem to have a ton of depth, the climax didn’t have the pulse-quickening suspense, and I felt the story’s resolution left me dissatisfied because it was too vague from all angles (no definitive answers as to what happened to society, PACT, the re-placed children, Bird’s mom, etc.). We know that dystopian storylines can be huge successes because many have come before and have done very well. This book had several thematic elements that were reminiscent of Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid’s Tale, etc., but this book just didn’t do it for me, unfortunately.

21 people found this helpful

carol

Weak—plot, characters

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 2, 2023

Verified Purchase

I just did not find this to be a compelling plot. Too many holes, too many easy outs, too many unexplained motivations for behavior. Characters acting contrary to their stated character. This is unfortunately one of those “tell a story to make a political point” and the art falls to serve the propaganda.

One person found this helpful

chris sadler

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 9, 2023

Verified Purchase

I don't get the praise; this book just reflects the current reality of MAGA and don't say gay laws but it does add a twist of some mom who seeks a way out

Laloop

Not For Me

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 19, 2022

Verified Purchase

I've heard nothing but great things about this author, and this is my first time reading her work. She has a quite way of telling a profound story. However, I found the message to be unnecessarily incitive in the way it provoked such an emotional response to the brutality of the conflict. It's a plot of savage cruelty best told in a head-on, non-fictional setting.

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