Deavasting, relevant, and yet an ode to the power of Love, Island of Missing Trees is a hauntingly beautiful story.
Told in dual timelines and perspectives, this novel follows Ada, a sixteen-year-old Turkish-Greek Girl in London, as she grapples with her family history following the loss of her mother.
Through Ada’s conversations with her aunt and in conjunction with the perspective of her father’s beloved fig tree, we learn a story of war, religious intolerance, and compounding atrocities.
This story creeps up on you suddenly without your realizing it. You are wrapped up in a world far apart from you in location and time; The tension, the heartbreak, and the slow unwinding of family trauma.
I could not help but make parallels to the present with contentions over foreign powers, religious conflicts, and displaced persons’ journeys. It made the emotional journey of this book even more turbulent.
The writing is poetic and metaphorical, and the narration brought it to life. I felt fully immersed in both the present day and the conflict centered around the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. Specifically, Amira Ghazalla’s voicing of the fig tree was enthralling, and I found myself wanting to savor those parts even more.
Readers who enjoy stories about family secrets, historical narrative, and lyrical writing will particularly enjoy this book!
