I really struggled with this book. It felt more like a YA novel and although the storyline is good it just didn't hold my interest.

There are three main viewpoint characters in My Other Heart. Mimi, a young woman who's on her way home to Vietnam when her baby goes missing, plus, Kat and Sabrina, two very different Asian-American girls on the brink of adulthood and friendship.

At the core of the book is a sense of feeling othered, wherever you are, whoever you're with, and trying to understand where you're from, as well as where you're going.

I felt enormous sympathy towards the two girls, though one got on my nerves rather more than the other. However, while they're supposed to be best friends, I never really bought it. I wasn't even sure they liked one another.

It's a slow-paced book, but that isn't on its own a bad thing. You get time to see the characters develop and begin to forge their paths through life. I really got the sense that these were their formative years. But if I sometimes struggled with the girls, I wasn't sure the Mimi pages added much. Her story was sad and a little obvious in its trajectory. Maybe it helped round everything out, but I'm not sure.

There was a lot of good here, but some meandering too.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the pre publication digital copy of this book in return for an honest review.
I really enjoyed this novel, in a quiet, appreciative way of the very well written characters; the exploration of young people coming of age, of the experiences of dual heritage people in America, of the emotional worlds of inter county adoption from the child and adults perspectives, and of the heartache and horror of a lost child. I liked all of the very varied characters for different reasons, and especially the clear way in which their lives and relationships are described. I did suspect the plot twist very early on but that didn’t spoil the story for me. I recommend this read.

In may 1998, Mimi her baby daughter Ngan are waiting at the gates of Philadelphia airport, until the unimaginable happens. Seventeen years later, best friends Sabrina and Kit are discussing their summer plans before college, each having trips planned to, respectively, China and Japan, to reconnect with their heritage; all while their parents watch on from their suburbs homes, waiting for secrets to come to life. Meanwhile, Mimi returns to Philadelphia in search of her lost child, tracing memories from that fateful day waiting at the gates.

The story is interesting and really intrigued me from the very first pages, but then it lost me a little at times in the middle. The writing is honestly great, it has a certain lyricality to it, while still being very easy to follow, which I really loved. It is a very fascinating read, covering many interesting topics, without ever shying away from the ugly bits of it all. The pacing was a bit weird, and felt much slower than I would have liked at times, but all in all it's not that bad, and it still is definitely worth it. There was a lot of jumping around with different times and POVs, which made it a little difficult to follow at times, but it definitely gets easier the more you get into the story. I do feel like maybe it would resonate with a more YA audience.

My Other Heart is a beautifully written novel that gracefully weaves together the stories of three women across time, continents, and generations. It opens with a tragic scene featuring Mimi and her baby daughter Ngan at the Philadelphia airport in 1998, and the rest of the story unravels from there.

Seventeen years later, we follow best friends Sabrina and Kit, each on their own path to uncover family histories and cultural roots. Their parallel journeys, one to China, the other to Japan, are tender, complex, and steeped in questions about identity, adoption, and what it truly means to belong.

The author’s language is graceful and introspective. She doesn't shy away from difficult themes such as displacement, classism, and I felt the nuances of Asian-American identity seem to be handled with care and clarity. What I found most moving was the way the narrative connected the characters, not just by family bonds, but through the shared desire to understand the past and define the future on their own terms.

While the pacing was occasionally slower than I would have liked, the emotional payoff was more than worth it. The characters felt real and their struggles relatable.
A powerful and tender coming-of-age story, My Other Heart is for readers who love intergenerational fiction that spans cultures and countries, and who appreciate the deeper journeys of life transitions and self-discovery.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hutchinson Heinemann for the ARC.

Where to start, when you are blubbering like an idiot at the end. It’s a masterpiece. As a fan of ‘Little fires everywhere” and “the vanishing half” I knew this was going to be a smash hit for me. It’s a beautiful novel which delves into complex issues of coming to age, racism, identity and friendships. Told through various perspectives of cleverly crafted characters we are taken on a journey spanning Vietnam, Japan and Philadelphia.

It opens in 1998 with a young mother Mimi, waiting to return to Vietnam with her infant child. As she looks down, her child is gone and her treatment by the authorities is nothing but shocking as they sedate and deport her.

Fast forward to 2015, Sabrina and her best friend Kit meet up to discuss their summer arrangements before heading off to college. Kit is used to getting everything she wants as an adopted only child of wealthy parents and quickly usurps her friends' plans by claiming it as her own. Just as Sabina wanted to get in touch with her roots by travelling to China, Kit decides to investigate hers in Japan. Naturally her parents have connections there and set her up there. Sabina misses out when her mother needs her saved money to pay a bill and remains in Philadelphia working as an intern and at the local country club. Despite this both girls grow up and come of age on their own over summer.

We cut to the various mothers, and it soon becomes apparent that one of the girls is the missing daughter of Mimi. I’m sure I am not alone in thinking I knew which one, but I won’t spoil it.

I cannot commend this book any higher than to say read it. It's emotional, powerful, and eye-opening. I loved it. Thank You Netgalley and Hutchinson Heinemann for the opportunity to read this ahead of publication

In May 1998, a baby girl is snatched at Philadelphia airport. Her mother, Mimi, is distraught and is flown home alone to Vietnam under sedation after hours of being interrogated and denied help in the search for her missing child. The years pass, but Mimi never forgets that day. She never moves on, and she never stops searching.

Seventeen years later, two best friends have just graduated from high school in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, and are looking for one last summer adventure before their futures begin. Sabrina Chen is working two jobs, saving up for her trip to China to meet her mother’s family. Meanwhile, Kit Herzog is headed for Tokyo, looking to connect with her biological mother’s roots and find out more than her wealthy adoptive parents will tell her.

My Other Heart is a profoundly candid novel about the intricate bonds that make us who we are. There are so many intersectional layers of race, class, and cultural divides, as well as grief, love, family, and identity, that intertwine to form tangible moments of truth and connection. It’s more vital than ever to read, share, and tell stories about the barriers immigrants and people of color face in America, and My Other Heart refuses to sanitize the realities of it, even while framing it as a tale of love and belonging.

Told from rotating perspectives, we’re shown how each person is feeling and how messy their interactions and emotions can be. The central characters are always believable in their wants and needs, even if you can recognize that what they want isn’t always what’s best for them. And more often than not, what they experience is too complicated for anyone to navigate without getting hurt. Depending on who’s narrating, their voices and influences shine through even as their thoughts bleed into one another; you get the feeling you’re never too far away from the other characters, even if their threads haven’t been pulled together yet.

Sabrina and Kit’s perspectives are both colored by their respective upbringings, with the added influence of being young and naive to the world. Their desire for connection and acceptance—from adults, their peers, and their first loves—is as poignant as it is endearing. But Mimi’s point of view is the most heartwrenching of them all, as you see her regret over that fateful day pierced with shards of hope for her daughter.

The central mystery surrounding Mimi’s missing child is a slow burn; the novel’s pacing meanders and takes a while to settle into, but the last act will steal your breath away. While you might want more closure and development for the characters, My Other Heart does well to remind you that life isn’t always tied up in a neat little bow; sometimes, people go their whole lives forever changed by a single fleeting moment.

I feel that I am not the right person for this book. I got frustrated at the beginning wanting it to move quicker.
It's well written and emotional but not for me.

powerful and emotional this book pulled me in all directions but all the directions you adore i a book like this. this book felt so smart, so succinct so accomplished. i couldn't bat an eye lid for want to keep reading every single part and take every part in. it made me feel so much for these characters who aren't even real!
two girls in this bright coming of age story is where this book takes us. one of them is adopted and the other is living with her hardworking single mother. we also have a mother who lost her daughter once, years ago at an airport on their way home to Vietnam.
these characters all have their own story to tell but they have some woven arcs mixed in that are brilliantly done.
you are taken into these woman's world. i cant believe the pain and then ongoing pain of our Mum Mimi who lost her child. and our other teenagers who are at the cusp of their last summer before university. but this Summer might teach, change more than they thought possible when you usually come to your last hurrah before Uni,job, adulting.
Sabrina is ready to travel to China. she's worked, worked and worked to be the one who does the right thing. now she wants to go out there and find her roots.
Kit was adopted by a wealthy American family. and now she wants to know more about her biological parents and wants to go to Japan to do so.
i found each of our characters were so powerful to read. i was right in there with them, going through what they were. they had such courage in who they were, different but still all so brave in what they were facing or prepared to face.
this was a brilliant book. and don't be assuming you think you know how its going to play out. because if you are anything like smug little me going in you are about to be proved marvelously wrong haha.

I have just finished this lovely book and I really enjoyed it. A powerful and different take on family, friendship, belonging and self-discovery.
We met Kit and Sabrina in their final year of High School in Philadelphia, they are friends united by being Asian in a largely white high school in a prosperous part of town. Both girls have different challenges in their life, one is adopted and living with her prosperous white family, but has no information about her birth family. The other lives with her hard-working Chinese mother, and they barely have enough money to get by day to day. Both young women have big decisions to make about their future, which leads them to explore their past.
Then we have Mimi, who 'lost' her child 17 years before, and has never given up on her hope of being reunited with her. - despite now living in her home country of Vietnam.
This would be such a good book for a book club discussion. Well written, with a number of different standpoints, it will keep you guessing until the end. I highly recommend it.

This well-crafted novel drew me in from the first page.
Mimi’s baby goes missing at Philadelphia Airport as she waits for her flight home to Vietnam. In the confusion that follows, she is sedated and taken on board, leaving baby Ngan behind.

Seventeen years later, we meet Sabrina and Kathryn. Both Asian, one has been adopted by a middle-class white couple, the other lives with a single Chinese mother who works in multiple jobs to make ends meet. Their lifestyles couldn’t be more different. Kathryn (Kit) is spoilt, indulged and sometimes difficult, while Sabrina is respectful to her mother, who lives on the principle that hard work and commitment will ultimately lead to success.
The characters are well written. Sabrina’s mother is very much in charge, whereas Kit’s mother appears at times nervous and unable to work out how to handle her daughter. Haunted by the past, Mimi has never forgotten Ngan and although she realises it’s a lost cause is determined to return to America to try and find her. I found I wasn’t a great fan of Kit, the spoilt daughter who seemed to think the world should turn the way she wanted it to. Sabrina, however, was completely different. I shared her disappointments, frustrations and hated the discrimination she suffered at times.
There’s a richness in the writing as we travel from the US to Tokyo to Vietnam following the story of all three characters. Each location is well described with confident familiarity, making you feel you could actually be there. This is a wonderful read, with an unexpected twist. Highly recommended.
My thanks to Hutchinson Heinmann, the author and Netgalley for an ARC of My Other Heart in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy. This is well written about 2 teenagers who are 'finding themselves' although the writing style seems suited for a more younger audience maybe YA. Still, a solid read.

As a huge fan of Little Fires Everywhere, comparisons to that book drew me in but despite a slightly similar plot line these are very different books.

I didn’t particularly enjoy the writing and found it a bit simple bordering on young adult, which isn’t a bad thing but wasn’t what I was expecting.

I didn’t dislike this book but overall it was pretty forgettable.

May 1998:
Mimi Traung and her baby daughter Ngan are at Philadelphia airport waiting to return to Vietnam but then Nigan disappears.
Seventeen years later two friends are deciding their summer holiday plans. Sabrina is going to China to meet family and Kit to Toyko where she hopes to find her biological mother.
Meanwhile Mimi returns to Philadelphia for answers.
Are they all connected and how?

Unfortunately this book just wasn’t for me. After reading the blurb I thought the book would be more interesting. I felt like it was a very slow mystery novel with a teenage angst element thrown in. I found all the characters lacking and could find very few redeeming traits in any of them.

This is only my opinion and has very good reviews from others so it may be a marmite book

An interesting insight into Asian culture in a coming of age story about two young girls. I failed to empathise with either Sabrina or Kit, the two main characters but the book gave a good insight into the issues facing immigrants in the US. Family secrets, parenthood and a little bit of mystery are the themes with the book tailored more towards young adults but it left me feeling a bit disappointed. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

An interesting well written book about two American teenagers on the brink of college 'finding themselves'. I did find the writing a little simplistic and perhaps more suited towards a YA audience. I also guessed the ending well in advance. Still, this didn't detract from what was a good read.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy. All opinions are my own.

My Other Heart by Emma Nanami Strenner is an amazing read about finding your own identity to find your path in life. The characters are very well written even though some are not so likable but it's part of their personality and this shows the great writing skills the author has. I think Emma Nanami Strenner is an author to have on radar.

“My Other Heart” is one of those beautiful books I could not put down. Emma Nanami Strenner weaves a story of identity, family, and self-discovery through multiple points of view, and I was immediately drawn into the lives of Mimi, Kit, and Sabrina.

While the central mystery of the novel—surrounding a missing child—wasn’t particularly suspenseful (the ending was quite predictable), that didn’t take away from the overall impact of the narrative.

The storytelling is compelling, and I loved the use of multiple perspectives here. I particularly loved watching Sabrina’s growth throughout the novel.

At times, I wasn’t sure the structure was completely balanced—it occasionally felt like certain parts or characters got more focus than others—but overall, the novel worked.

I was drawn into this from the start - what a terrible thing to happen to Mimi and how little sympathy she got. The seventeen year wait seemed a little long, but it must have been hard for her with distance, language etc. I'm glad she found Toan! I found Kit rather irritating, but probably typical of an American privileged teen. But the shock of what happened seemed to bring her to her senses and make her realise how lucky she was. I guessed the truth behind what happened to Ngan, but I'm not sure if it was supposed to be a twist. I did find the jumping about from time to time and character to character jarring.