The Island of Missing Trees
Ratings12
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings12
Average rating4.2
A rich, magical new book on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal
Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.
Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited--- her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.
A moving, beautifully written, and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history, and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.
Reviews with the most likes.
The story travels back and forth in time and between POVs normally I'm not a fan of going back and forth in time (because I lose track of what's happening when) but Shafak managed to make things distinct enough that it wasn't hard to keep track of what was happening to whom, when. I enjoyed the presence of a rather unusual POV character and the developing dynamics between characters.
Shafak's writing style and characters are so charming that I often forget just how heartbreaking some scenes are, sometimes that's a plus sometimes I'm not sure how I feel about it.
It was the 3rd book of hers I read in the span of a month, I think I'm hooked!
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2,097 booksWhen you think back on every book you've ever read, what are some of your favorites? These can be from any time of your life – books that resonated with you as a kid, ones that shaped your personal...
