Five years ago, I was a huge fan of Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, and I was happy to receive a copy of Our Missing Hearts from Penguin Group/Press and NetGalley in exchange for this honest review. 

It is one of my less-favorite genres, a dystopian novel… set in a time following a period of great upheaw al, during which the government instituted PACT, a law (or perhaps series of laws) designed to “preserve American Culture.” These laws were instituted to calm things down, to protect people, to make people safe. The protagonist is a young man named Bird who goes to school, and comes home to life with his father, a man who has a subsistence-level job shelving books in a library. The two of them are living alone after the disappearance of Margaret, Bird’s mother. She was a danger to them, with her pesky resistance and activism. 

This is definitely a political book, covering  topics including anti-Asian hate, motherhood, family separation, police brutality, socioeconomic inequality, and much more. It’s absolutely terrifying to read, especially for anyone who has been paying attention to the current threats to our democracy. Yes, it is fiction, but with the current state of the nation, it just feels  absolutely possible, if not probable. 

TBH, it was a bit much for me. Incredibly unsettling. Extremely thought-provoking. Very entertaining, Definitely book club material. Five stars, with the caveat that it may give readers nightmares. Hopefully, it will also inspire people to vote.