Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng, Little, Brown
When 12-year-old Bird receives a surprise letter, he knows it’s from his mother even without opening it. He hasn’t been called Bird since his mum left. It was the name she said he gave himself when he was tiny, the only name he would answer to because “it felt like him”. Now Bird must answer to Noah, his birth name, and forget about his mother. He feels as if he’s wearing “a rubbery Halloween mask”, a potent metaphor for the dystopian world author Celeste Ng has created in her terrifying and enthralling new novel.
There is no return address on the letter but it has to be from her and Bird knows he must hide it, even from his father. The letter has been inspected “for your safety”, notes the sticker from PACT – the Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act. This law was set in place a decade earlier in response to “The Crisis”, a period of violent protests. One of its central tenets is to protect children from “environments espousing harmful views” and most dangerous are those promoting Asian culture. Bird’s mother, a Chinese American poet, disappeared. Since that day Bird and his white Harvard academic father have tried to lie low, but with Bird’s recognisably Asian features they are walking a
