Our Missing Hearts: Reese's Book Club: A Novel

From the #1 bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, comes the inspiring new novel about a mother's unshakeable love.

 

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn't know what happened to her--only that her books have been banned--and he resents that she cared more about her work than about him.

 

Then one day, Bird receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, and soon he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of heroic librarians, and finally to New York City, where he will finally learn the truth about what happened to his mother, and what the future holds for them both.

 

Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It's about the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and the power of art to create change.

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Published Aug 22, 2023

352 pages

Average rating: 7.02

849 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

What Bookclubbers are saying about this book

✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI

Readers say *Our Missing Hearts* features Celeste Ng’s poignant prose and timely exploration of racism, censorship, and identity in a dystopian Americ...

tripp2mylou
Mar 16, 2025
10/10 stars
I would give this more stars if I could. It's going to take me a beat to process my thoughts and put words to how I felt about this book, but suffice it to say it was quite a gut punch of a book. This is my first read of Ng's work but I am absolutely electrified by her prose and this whole story.
mhooper
Dec 27, 2023
8/10 stars
Is this book now or in the future? There are many parallels with our world today.
KikiStoneCreek
Jun 03, 2023
4/10 stars
I'm sure that there will be meant Celeste Ng fans who will love this book, but I found it tedious and dull. Nothing ever happened and by the time you figured out what Margaret was going to do, you saw the futility of her efforts and the futility of reading this book to its end.
CHare!
Jan 12, 2026
7/10 stars
Kinda hits a little close to home. Does make me wonder if Ive been hiding in my own bubble as well.
Anne Phillips
Jan 03, 2026
10/10 stars
This book broke my heart open, especially amidst the brave campus protests in solidarity with Palestine. Also a horrible reminder of the Asian hate around the pandemic. Ng so gracefully captures humanity and struggles for justice as well as the terrifying fragility of civil society.

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