by: Elif Shafak
Goodreads description:
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.
Helen says: 🤓🤓🤓🤓
If you loved Remarkably Bright Creatures, I think you will also love this book. A fig tree is a human like narrator in this novel, very similar to Marcellus the Octopus in the for aforementioned. It had a slow start, but stick with it as it very much picked up halfway through. Also, the love story of Kostas and Defne was heart wrenching. My heart literally ached while reading. Did I mention that it was beautifully written? That too…
Holly says: 🤓🤓🤓🤓
I really liked this book – probably my favorite of the month. It’s another novel that gives human characteristics and emotions to a plant or animal (like North Woods and Remarkably Bright Creatures), in this case, a fig tree. This is a saga of a love story set mainly in Cyprus during a time of violent conflict, but is spans countries and decades and is simply beautifully written. I highly recommend this one.
Helen and Holly Hit the Books 