Our Missing Hearts

The author of two global bestsellers, «Everything I Never Told You» and «Little Fires Everywhere», without abandoning her psychological style, steps into a new genre territory. A novel about maternal love in a world enslaved by fear. Twelve-year-old Chizh leads a quiet life with a loving but broken father, a former linguist who now works as a librarian. Chizh knows that one must not ask questions, must not stand out, must not stray far from home. In recent years, their lives have been subjected to laws designed to preserve traditional values. New laws allow authorities to take children away from opposition-minded parents, while books deemed unpatriotic are seized from libraries and bookstores. Among them is a collection of poems by Chizh's mother. His mother disappeared when Chizh was nine years old. One day, Chizh receives a mysterious letter containing only strange drawings and sets out to search for his mother. His journey will become a return to the fairy tales and stories that his mother once read to him and that he has forgotten. Celeste Ng's new novel is a story about how one can survive even in a broken and twisted world, if your heart has survived.