Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng is a dystopia highlighting the discrimination & injustice against the Asian community in America. Set in the years of Crisis (recession), it quiet effectively points out how the Asians (in particular China) were blamed for the situation and how cruelly the political system wrongs them in it’s name. It’s main focus is PACT, a law enforced to protect American culture & tradition from these outsiders. In the name of PACT, children were taken from their families on slightest pretext – so as to guard them against such maligned, Anti-American views. And thereof, what the child & the families go through.
The first bit of the book gets your attention with the poignant descriptions of the fear in which the Asian community constantly lived, wherein, to stay unnoticed was the way to survival. The fear of parents of their children being taken, the relentless albeit hopeless effort to retrace the links of the separated, the undercover roles librarians & individuals played – it makes you feel the pain of the situation.
But this all is addressed quite amply in the first quarter of the book itself. So, what about the rest? Sadly, it feels excruciatingly repetitive, slow paced & difficult to read! Over and over, the same points about the unfairness & misuse of PACT are being dished out, with the story making little progress at all.
But the problems of the book do not end there. This book reminds me faintly of a Bollywood flick of the 90s called Main Azad Hoon. Though the cause & the handling are quite different, there is the semblance of similarity in the fact that in either of these, the protagonist finds himself unwittingly the face of a social cause. And, with time, the magnitude of involvement becomes such that it is impossible for him to untie from it. But where this book loses out is how inexplicably the protagonist (Margaret) fails to stir up a revolution despite her selfless sacrifice. All she is able to garner is a few tears? Like really? So in the end, it’s all for a useless cause?
I also failed to comprehend the absurd medium that Margaret chooses to achieve her cause. Small transistors broadcasting her voice on streets and so easily leading the cops to her? Hah! First, if we just look at it from a tech point of view, it looks quite a weird thing to make believe. And second, I just wonder why she doesn’t make use of the plethora of modern day options such as social media, emails or videos? So easily you could make each of your stories viral and not be traced! I was just left face palming!
As a mother, Margaret was a huge disappointment. Here she is, putting her life at stake just to reunite the missing hearts (children) with their families. And what the hell are you doing with your own son? She acts so grossly irresponsible by extending her broadcast and letting the cops reach her. Did she think she would have told all stories in these extra few minutes she took? Did she once think of the poor Bird and her husband? That they need her? Or does one supposedly brilliant speech for her son at the end mend it all? Truly a let down.
Lastly, I absolutely hate philosophical, poetic endings. Serving out false hope in the most fashionably symbolic ways. That probably Margaret will return in the leaves falling off the birch tree or the hawk flying above! Ridiculous!
Conclusion
If you consider the social cause, yes. If you consider the way the plot is handled, no. A lot to be desired. The book has it’s sparks in things like Ethan’s interest in etymology or the reappearance of Dori & Sadie. But it is too little to keep the story afloat. A major reason why I did not like Our Missing Hearts was the lack of anything positive coming out of the entire fight that Margaret is fighting – in the end it all seems to have gone waste, left for others to continue. Maybe a passable one time read, if you have the patience.
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