The Island of Missing Trees

This book got me right in the feels.

This book got me right in the feels.

It is no secret that Elif Shafak is my favorite author and The Island of Missing Trees keeps proving why. As always, the descriptions and imagery are rich and immersive and the explorations of identity are nuanced and thoughtful. In this book, we follow Ada, a teenage girl in London, living with her Greek Cypriot father and mourning her recently deceased Turkish Cypriot mother. There is another timeline set in the midcentury, which shows the early lives of Ada's parents and their struggles to cross the Green Line in Nicosia.

“Cartography is another name for stories told by winners. For stories told by those who have lost, there isn’t one.”

Ostensibly, Ada is an only child, but she has an unlikely sibling in the fig tree in the garden. This tree is a cutting from a centuries-old tree, housed in the courtyard of a taverna in Cyprus where Ada's parents used to spend time together, which Ada's father smuggled to the UK when they relocated to neutral ground.

“Because that is what migrations and relocations do to us: when you leave your home for unknown shores, you don’t simply carry on as before; a part of you does inside so that another part can start all over again.”

Ada struggles with normal teenage identity and growing pains, which is overshadowed by the death of her mother. Her mother's sister comes to visit and she and Ada debate and commiserate over their losses, though they knew two versions of the same person. Ada's story and her parents' story weave together seamlessly in this book and I foresee many rereadings in my future.