Welcome friend! One of Jenna Book Club’s picks in 2025 was My Other Heart and I decided to give it a read. The story of a mother looking for her daughter who she lost seventeen years ago at an American international airport was a thought-provoking read about motherhood, friendship and more. Read on to learn more about the book and my thoughts on it.
A missing child, two girls in search of their true identities–a stunning novel of mothers, daughters and best friends
In June 1998, Mimi Truang is on her way home to Vietnam when her toddler daughter vanishes in the Philadelphia airport.
Seventeen years later, two best friends in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, discuss their summer plans before college. Kit, with the support of her white adoptive parents, will travel to Tokyo to explore her Japanese roots. This dizzying adventure offers her a taste of first love and a new understanding of what it means to belong.
Sabrina had hoped to take a similar trip to China, but money is tight. Her disappointment subsides, however, when she meets a bold, uncompromising new mentor who prompts Sabrina to ask questions she’s avoided all her life. Meanwhile, Mimi purchases a plane ticket to Philadelphia. She finally has a lead in her search for her daughter.
When Mimi, Kit, and Sabrina come face to face, they will confront the people they truly are, in this tremendously moving novel that is propelled to its astonishing climax in a way you will never forget.
My Other Heart – Review
The Opening Shock
In the prologue, Mimi is at the Philadelphia airport with her one-year-old, on the way to Saigon, her home country. At 10:15 a.m., she “did not yet know that her baby was gone.” The wretchedness this brings forth is palpable. To lose a child is unspeakable horror, and I am glad that the author does not go into Mimi’s grief continually. She sets the stage for the book in the prologue and then moves on. I really appreciated having Sabrina and Kit as the main perspectives of this story rather than Mimi. As a mother to a baby, it would have been too much to join Mimi in her grief, and I don’t think I could have kept reading. But this prologue offered just enough of the pain.
Two Friends, Two Worlds
Kit and Sabrina are classmates and best friends. They may go to the same public school that is really a private school in disguise, but they come from completely different walks of life. Kit is of Asian origin, adopted by a wealthy American family. Sabrina is Chinese with a single working mom who relies on her to make a better life for both of them. Sabrina wants to explore her Chinese heritage and has saved up every single penny she could so that the summer after school ends and before university starts, she can make her way to China. She shares this dream with Kit, and that gives Kit the idea to go explore her Japanese roots. All Kit has to do is convince her parents, and off she goes to Tokyo!
This is just one of the many things that come easily to Kit and show the privilege she has due to her family’s financial situation. Growing up, as an adopted child who does not look like her parents, she experiences being an object of fascination and intrigue. In Japan, she feels the uncanniness of blending in with the crowd and not belonging to it. While it does prove to be an experience that grows her as she spends part of the time with people like herself who are part-American and part-Asian, she still does not come out understanding herself. When she returns home, though, it is when Mimi’s search for her daughter leads her to Kit’s door, where Sabrina also happens to be.
Truth be told, I was not a Kit fan. This isn’t really Kit’s fault. It’s the fact that she is right next to Sabrina, who has always worked hard, who was the one who dreamed and saved up to explore her cultural roots and then wasn’t able to. Sabrina does not have any family except her mother, Lee Lee, who does not want to talk about the past, her father, China, or anything except reminding her of her responsibilities to be successful and a good daughter. The way Lee Lee behaves, the things she leaves unsaid, the things she dismisses are not gone unseen or unheard by Sabrina. It is only when she starts to work with Kim before college that she finally starts to see the truths her mother had been covering up.
Mothers at the Center
Lee Lee is a strict mother, but as the plot unfolds and her story is made clear to the reader, I felt the pangs of anxiety around her undocumented status and the burden she carries of wanting to provide a better life for her daughter, so that these opportunities would not be taken away from her.
Sally, Kit’s mother, offers the perspective of what it means to be a mother to an adopted child. The second-guessing that comes with not having birthed the child herself and the terror of how her relationship with Kit would evolve should she go looking for her birth mother.
There is no comparison here of which mother’s pain is the most. Mimi has spent seventeen years gathering the money, looking for an opportunity to return to America and find her daughter, and in her own unique, resourceful way, she faces the helplessness she felt in the country when she lost her child and returns to find her.
Friendship and Change
My Other Heart portrays the dynamic of Sabrina and Kit’s friendship really well. It shows the influence that their mothers have on their relationship in the beginning, particularly Kit’s mom who does not want to associate with Sabrina and her family but gives in when she sees the two are inseparable. Kit lets Sabrina be in the shadows, unnoticed, exactly how she likes it. Sabrina offers comfort to Kit, exactly the words she wants to hear. They understand each other while at the same time, they know the different worlds they inhabit. While Kit is self-centred, Sabrina is worldly aware.
As I neared the end of this book, I was disappointed. I knew how it was going to end. Who Mimi’s daughter was going to turn out to be. And yet, the ending is not about whether it is Kit or Sabrina, it’s about their friendship and how they drift apart and how Mimi walking into their lives reveals to both of them that they are different.
While Kit is in Japan, Sabrina has a lot of growing up to do herself. I loved Eva Kim and how the truth bombs she dropped on Sabrina, how she encouraged her and made herself available. Sabrina started to model Eva Kim, and I felt happy that she had someone in her world other than Lee Lee to look up to. Sabrina finds love in Kit’s secret boyfriend, Dave, and eventually comes to realize that sometimes friendship is better than a romantic relationship. Though Dave isn’t shown in the best of light in Kit’s chapters, Sabrina’s understanding of him made him likeable to me. His honesty and friendship were good for Sabrina, and in hard times, he was her solid ground. After Mimi, Sabrina’s life expands and grows. She starts to materialize her dreams despite the obstacles in front of her, and my wish for her is for her to thrive and keep moving forward fearlessly.
Kit has always romanticized the possibility of finding her birth mother. In a closed adoption, there is not much to know or details to be found. But when Mimi comes seeking her lost daughter, Kit comes to understand what unexpected arrivals can mean for life. She comes to face the horror of suddenly meeting her mother on her mother’s terms. We think we have a sense of control over how life unfolds but that is not true and it is about time that Kit experiences this wake-up call.
My Other Heart is not about who Mimi’s daughter turns out to be, but about the many forms of love—friendship, parental, and self—that shape us and sometimes break us. Kit’s chapters in particular felt a bit slow to me, but the book did come together in the end and the emotional truths were written well.
All in all, My Other Heart was a good read. It isn’t my favourite Jenna’s Book Club recommendation but definitely a thought-provoking story. I won’t forget the heartache of the mother who lost her child at an international airport and the smile this child gave to the women who found her.
Have you read My Other Heart? If so, what did you think of it? Tell me in the comments.
Check out Jenna’s other pick – The Things We Cannot Say that I loved!! Here is my review link. 🙂
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