7/5/2023 0 Comments All our missing hearts![]() ![]() PACT is mentioned on nearly every page of the first few chapters, delivered literally as didactic schoolwork, and lays the foundation for what will come. However, these early chapters introduce much more, namely the crushing weight of PACT, the aforementioned nationalistic legislation. Early on we’re introduced to his struggles at school, his distaste for his propagandizing homework, and the sense of abandonment brought by his mother’s three year absence from the family home. While the characters’ interpersonal relationships have moments of brilliance, they ultimately feel smothered under Ng’s world-building and lead to lingering questions long after the book has ended.īird, our inquisitive preteen protagonist, is thoughtful and understated like many of Ng’s child characters. At the same time, Ng traverses familiar territory of fraught familial dynamics and the multifaceted nature of identity. This book, centering twelve year old Bird Gardner and his complex relationship with his absent mother, is set in the aftermath of the “Crisis”: an economic collapse in the United States which leads to the demonization of Asian cultures and the onset of relentless nationalistic legislation. Following her critically acclaimed novels “Everything I Never Told You” and “Little Fires Everywhere” author Celeste Ng explores new territory in her latest novel “ Our Missing Hearts” by stretching the boundaries of American political reality. ![]()
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