Our Missing Hearts

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What to expect

From the #1 bestselling 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 civilized 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.

Critics Review

  • A stunning story of injustice and resistance…Lyrical, intricate, unsparing: this novel will break your heart and fire up your courage

    Mail on Sunday

  • A lyrical and touching testimony to maternal love, it’s also a salutary reminder of how easily freedoms can be lost and of the power of words to change lives

    Daily Mail

  • One of the biggest books of the year…deeply moving

    Stylist

  • Beautifully stirring and heart-wrenching, this powerful novel from the author of Little Fires Everywhere is a homage to love and will tug at your heartstrings

    Heat, Book of the Month

  • A beautiful, thoughtful book…Brilliant and moving

    Hello magazine

  • Ng’s compelling writing paints a picture of a world so real you can almost touch it. Despite the darkness of the story, the love of a family stands out.

    Independent

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