By: Celeste Ng
RECOMMEND
TLDR: This wasn’t my favorite of Ng’s novels (I prefer Little Fires Everywhere), but it was worth a read, particularly if you enjoy dystopian novels. This follows a family of 3 as they’re separated following an uptick in anti-Asian rhetoric, politics, and ultimately violence.
The Longer Review: My first thought after beginning this book was that I couldn’t tell if this was based in the past or future. I found myself wondering if there was some part of American History that I missed, because the plot was so believable that it felt like I had. The Author’s note helped clear that up for me: it’s based in a totally fictional present day New England.
Bird (aka Noah) is a young boy whose mother has left without a trace following an increase of violence and conflict against Asian Americans due to recently passed legislation called PACT. He has no idea where she’s gone, or why, other than it likely has something to do with PACT. His curiosity is piqued when he learns that activists are using a line from one of his mother’s poems (“Our Missing Hearts”) to fight back against the removal and relocation of children of “violators” of the law.
There are definitely some interesting twists in this story, but overall it wasn’t my absolute favorite. Maybe simply because like The Handmaid’s Tale, it felt too real and too sad most of the time.
