BookLife Review: Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng

dystopian future, poet, mother-son, libraries, missing mother

Must I become accustomed to futuristic dystopias where women or children are treated badly? Perhaps, if written this well. Celeste Ng (@pronounced_ing) crafts Our Missing Hearts, a compelling tale of a poet who preemptively abandons her husband and son when a signature line of her poetry becomes the anthem of the revolution in an oppressive future American society. She runs away to prevent "the authorities" from "removing" her son from his home to "protect" him from her subversive influence.

A clue only the boy could understand leads him to find her in hiding, and the tale unfolds as her now-revolutionary heart compels her to collect and share the stories of the families ripped apart in the name of national security. Horrifying, sickeningly familiar and just barely outside present possibility, the story separately explores the imperfect lives of child, father and mother to fully render their grief whole.