The Futuristic Journey of Our Missing Hearts

Beginning with the opening line “The letter arrives on a Friday,” the reader of Our Missing Hearts, authored by Celeste Ng, will be hooked (Ng 3). What letter? Who sent the letter? Is the letter important? Yes, the letter is important because it will take the 12-year-old boy, Bird, on a quest to find his missing mother.

Our Missing Hearts has a storyline both mysterious and timeless, set in the dystopian future where the unjust hatred of discrimination festers and controls people’s lives. The protagonist, Bird, lives with his father in the futuristic world of America, where the government agency The Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act (PACT)  runs the country (Ng 10). Because of the act, being Chinese, or even remotely looking Chinese, a person will be unfairly discriminated against. Bird’s mother is Chinese, while his father is a white American. The reader will understand at this moment why his father is so fearful and constantly telling his son to keep his head down. But, if he wants to find his long missing mother, he will need to quiet his fears and forget the cautionary words.     

Our Missing Hearts begins like a dark children’s story but watch out: the reader will soon be swept into the world of social and political unrest. Bird begins by following the clues in his mother’s letter and sets out from his home in Cambridge to take a bus to New York City. Ng is flawless in describing both the attitude of the peoples and the landscape the boy sees. The reader will be drawn to characters so beautifully interwoven throughout and will start pulling for them to end up happily in a fairy tale. Unfortunately, this is no fairy tale: instead, it’s the harsh reality of this futuristic world.

This is a powerful novel on the crippling impacts of discrimination. It lifts a person out of their skin and into that of this young boy seeing the world through his eyes. Setting foot in New York City, he sees an act of cruelty occur on the streets he is walking down. A man attacks an old lady and tosses her down. He then repeatedly kicks her as she lays on the ground: “towering over her, kick, kick, kick, soft sickening thumps like a mallet on meat” (130). Bird’s soul is hurt by what he sees: the persecution of a woman of his race.

Our Missing Hearts is a book to be admired by adults of all ages. It is an engaging read  and will be long remembered after closing the final page (450).

Barbara Goodboe-Bisschoff is a student at Anoka-Ramsey Community College pursuing her degree in political science.