Book Review- Celeste Ng's Our Missing Hearts

We have a few more weeks in the year, but I’m going to call it, Celeste Ng’s Our Missing Hearts was the best fiction that I read in 2022. It’s a heavy, powerhouse of a novel about love, suppression, and art. It’s incredible.

Years in the past, Margaret published a book of poetry that did not have a wide audience. Now, she is married and the mother of a young son. Both Margaret’s life and the world around her have changed dramatically. Approximately a decade earlier, the world suffered through a devastating pandemic and the political climate has shifted. China is the biggest enemy and by extension, asian-americans are deemed suspicious. Patriotism is enforced and those who are suspicious must double-down on their efforts, such as donating to causes supporting an America first agenda. Margaret is asian-american and although she has a subversive, artistic streak, she is trying to keep a low profile for the sake of her family.

Margaret’s world is upended when a group of anti-government rebels takes a line from one of her poems and uses it as their slogan. Soon, Margaret is seeing her line, “Our Missing Hearts” show up in the news and in her own community as an act of rebellion. Knowing that it’s just a matter of time before she becomes implicated, Margaret goes on the run. Her son, whom she affectionately nicknamed, Bird, is left in the dark as to why his mother left. Kids are being taken from homes that are considered anti-American and in an effort to keep Bird with his father, his parents have made a complete split. If the police come, his father will give the story that Margaret is subversive and they have nothing to do with her, no clue as to where she has gone. She is the enemy and they do not talk about her in their household.

Years after Margaret left, a preteen Bird finds a hidden message from his mom and decides to run away to find her. Bird senses that his parents have been lying to him and will risk everything to find out the truth.

Our Missing Hearts is absolutely terrifying, primarily because it feels like it could be foreshadowing a future America. Certainly, there are parallels to our current world with the covid pandemic, the rise is asian hate crimes, and the way some people are viewing patriotism. It certainly doesn’t feel far off from a potential future. In addition to making parents fearful of having their children taken from them, a big aspect of the government control is the banning and restriction of books. Libraries play a large part in Our Missing Hearts, however, they are not functioning quite in the way that we know them. In a clever twist, librarians are acting as an underground information network. Rightly so, they are among the heroes in the story. Artists are also heroes, as they put voice to things that others dare not speak. The climax of the story is quite unexpected, spectacular, and heartbreaking.

Our Missing Hearts is a heavy burden of a book, but an important read. It’s one that will linger with you and would make an excellent choice for book groups. I can imagine that Ng and this book in particular, will end up on banned book lists in the future. It’s sure to set some people off.

Book Review- Max Cutler's Cults: Inside the World's Most Notorious Groups and Understanding the People who Joined them

Thank you to Libro FM for an audio version of Max Cutler’s Cults: Inside the World’s Most Notorious Groups and Understanding the People Who Joined Them.

I was attracted to the theme of the book and had not previously realized that the stories were culled from Cutler’s podcast. The audio version has different narrators for each chapter, which I thought worked well. I believe all of the narrators are part of the podcast and possibly co-writers or researchers for the material. Each chapter details a different cult leader and each one is in-depth and well researched. The chapters start with the childhoods of the cult leaders, showing their rise to prominence and the eventual outcome of their situation. Cult leaders are often referred to as being charismatic and that concept is shown here, but also coupled with a sense of their own ultimate authority. Their ego and self-importance seems boundless, to the point where it draws others into their circle.

I had heard of many of the cult leaders detailed, but each chapter had insights that I had not known. I was surprised by the background of Jim Jones, who I had not realized had been involved in the civil rights movement prior to his cult activities. When someone commits murder or other heinous crimes, it’s hard to disassociate them from their actions. However, it is interesting to consider the person prior to their notoriety and to this aspect, I found Jim Jones’ early life to be fascinating. It’s incredible to think how some people manage to leverage their charisma to gain not only a following, but to lead people to kill themselves or others.

Cutler looks at Cults from around the world, operating in different time periods. One leader I had not previously heard of was Adolfo Constanzo, head of the narcosatanists in Mexico during the late 80’s As their name implies, the narcosatanists were involved in both drug trafficking and satanism. This section was quite shocking, rife with animal and human sacrifices. It’s horrific, creepy, and downright disgusting. Cutler details how Constanzo and his followers lived in dirty apartments with bones and other body parts strewn about, decaying flesh creating a stench.

Cults is not for the faint of heart, but it is an intriguing look at a world that a majority of us will successfully avoid. Cutler explains that cult followers come from a variety of backgrounds and some are even highly intelligent and/or educated. The commonality seems to be people who are lacking a sense of belonging or a way to make sense of their world, which attracts them to the message that the cult leader is selling. Cults is a great pick for anyone interested in this dark aspect of humanity. It’s well written and engaging.

Book Review- Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart

Thank you to Libro FM for a copy of the audio version of Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart.

I have misjudged Brene Brown. I had not heard of her prior to working at a bookstore and based on the customers purchasing her books, I thought that she “wasn’t for me.” I was under the impression that she is a christian author and that her psychology books have a spiritual bent. That said, I was curious about her popularity and when the opportunity to try the audio version of her latest book, Atlas of the Heart, came up, I decided to give it a go. Atlas of the Heart is a far different book than I had assumed.

In Atlas of the Heart, Brown explores the language that we use to describe emotion. She explains the complexities within the words we use and how sometimes, the meaning of a particular word, might be different from our understanding. Brown’s book is shelved in psychology, but I connected with its exploration of language. This is equally a book about language. It’s beautifully and thoughtfully written. Brown uses photographs, personal stories, and art as an impactful way of explaining the connection between words and emotion.

In her charming and soothing southern accent, Brown narrates the audio version. She comes across as down-to-earth and relatable. My thoughts that her work might have a religious bent were unfounded. She simply mentioned a situation where she attended church, but overall, the book is very secular. I’m not sure if this is true for her other books and I’m not implying that there is anything wrong with christian books or any religious books for that matter, only that they generally don’t hold an interest for me.

Atlas of the Heart is gorgeous in presentation. The audio book comes with a digital guide, so that you won’t miss out on the visual elements. However, I just went ahead and looked at the physical book when I was at work. The hardcover would make a fantastic gift or personal library edition. I can imagine that Atlas of the Heart would be a book that people would reread or return to as a reference.