Our Missing Hearts

By: Celeste Ng

Narrated by: Celeste Ng, Lucy Liu

From the number one best-selling author of Little Fires Everywhere, a deeply heart-wrenching novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear.

Read by award-winning actress Lucy Liu, with an author's note read by Celeste Ng.

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in Harvard's library. He knows not to ask too many questions, stand out too much, stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve 'American culture' in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird's mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.

Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn't know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn't wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is drawn into a quest to find her.

His journey will take him through the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken and finally to New York, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.

Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilised communities can turn a blind eye to the most searing injustice. It's a story about the power—and limitations—of art to create change in the world, the lessons and legacies we pass onto our children and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact.

©2022 Celeste Ng (P)2022 Hachette Audio UK

Another brilliant and memorable book.

Celeste Ng has, again, written a story that stands out among all the others. I found the theme deeply moving and fascinating. This novel will stay with me, as all her others have.

Gently disturbing

Thoroughly enjoyable story, (and narration) which was a joy to listen to, despite the oppression and tyranny.
Thought provoking and touching.

So painful

Ugh, this book was awful. I initially thought it was the narration, which was truly horrendous. And I love Lucy Liu, but the big screen is her lane. She did not invoke any feelings of what the characters were trying to portray. In one ‘scene’, I thought the dad was about to cry, turns out he was actually mad as hell. That feeling did not make it off the page.
The story is so weak. I actually didn’t understand most of it. Zero character development and no real connection created for the reader. Haven’t read her other books but I’ve been told they’re amazing, hence this pick. Would sadly not recommend this book.