Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng is about family, race, books and libraries and what a dystopian society might look like. I did find it read a bit too like a YA novel for my personal taste.

Another powerful piece of literary fiction from the Little Fires Everywhere author that looks at so many topucs we experience in our world today. I enjoyed it (maybe not as much as other reviewers) but I think this will be another huge hit for the author.

Celeste Ng’s writing is exquisite, but this novel just didn’t grab me in the same way that her previous two did. It is certainly timely, and the premise is interesting, but the family dynamics weren’t as intensely captured to me as her previous work. I still enjoyed it very much, but for me it was slightly disappointing.

Our mission hearts is a really lovely, well written story. With characters you take to your heart and wish the best for. It's also heartbreaking and really moving Celeste Ng really does know how to write a story that really makes you think and makes you question how we all live out lives. How other people face such injustices and the way we can become more mindful of what is going on and how to help others.

In this book we meet Bird who is definitely brought up in the old school settings of children should be seen but not heard. He is brought up by his father. They live a quite life. Governed by laws written after America has been through economic instability and violence. The laws are in place to keep the peace and restore prosperity. The law have the power to remote children of dissidents from their homes and relocate them to other parents. They have also taken off the shelves any books that are seen as unpatriotic. Some of these books were written by birds mother who left the family when bird was nine and who wrote poetry.

Bird has been brought up not knowing his mother's works, what happened to her or not too much information about who she was or why she left and he certainly has never read and of the books she has written. However he has alot of unanswered questions about her and he often wonders who she was and why she left, although he would never speak these thoughts outloud as that is strictly forbidden.

But one days Bird is sent a letter which only has a cryptic drawing on it, but it is enough y begin his journey o try and find her. It will take every Inch of all the memories and folktales that he remembers her telling him. I will take him though the underground network of librarians and into the lives of all those children who have been uprooted from their families. It is a dangerous but also extremely needed track that he needs to make and go on.

Our Missing Hearts feels somewhat different in style to Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You, but with the same iconic brilliance we've come to know and love from Celeste Ng.

This speculative fiction is beautiful and heartbreaking; poignant and powerful. Written in the present tense, it follows a boy named Bird as he learns the (terrible) truths about the world he's growing up in.

All at once, it's a call to remember and a call to arms. Just like the name of the protaganist, it's a book with a brilliant beating heart that, in my opinion, soars high.

Having read and loved Celeste Ng's previous books I was eager to read this ARC copy of her new work gifted to me by NetGalley and the publisher. The book was not what I was expecting at all but wow, what a powerful and emotive read.
This is a deeply political book covering a myriad of topics including racial discrimination, abuse of Government power, police brutality, destruction of families, the transformative power of literature and the power of love.
The book is beautifully written yet offers a dark vision for the future - sadly one that is frighteningly feasible.
A challenging but necessary and deeply thought provoking read. Highly recommended.