Read. Write. Listen. Create.

The holidays were busy, but now I’m back with a book review from book club. Towards the end there are some spoilers so skip those parts if you want to be surprised while reading the book!

I gave this one a 3.75 stars out of 5. It took me awhile to get used to a tree as a narrator, but as the book went on I realized it was a clever way to tell the story from the viewpoint of something that was alive before the other narrator, Ada.

The Island of Missing Trees is a semi-historical fiction book with magical realism elements. The chapters go back and forth between the character’s early lives in Cyprus and the father’s present day life with his daughter, Ada in England.

Roger Watson writes for Country Squire Magazine, stating that “the magical realism of the novel is present in the device of alternating chapters. The chapters alternate between those on the narrative about Ada and delving back to the days of partition (in Cyprus) with chapters on a fig tree which is buried by Ada’s father in the garden at the start of the novel.”

I listened to the audiobook so I didn’t realize that Ada’s father sees the tree as an embodiment of his late wife until the book discussion with book club so I guess it does make sense that the tree knew so much about the family it lived with. I liked learning the facts that the tree would tell the reader; like how trees give out stress signals. For example, if a tree is getting cut down, it gives out the stress signal to other trees.

There were some times where it felt like a lot was going on when the chapters would go back and forth between different time periods. I got mixed up with the early 2000s chapters and the 2010s chapters a few times but I don’t know if that’s because I was listening to the book rather than reading it.

It was interesting to see how the mother Defne was different in the early 2000s and how she slowly started smoking and drinking over time. Because she wasn’t alive during the present day chapters of the book, it was fun to see the good times she had with her husband when they were growing up.

I liked how the fig tree was connected to Cyprus and how the tree in England was a clipping from the original. It took awhile to see how the tree was connected to Defne and why her husband tried so hard to care for it, but in the end you find out that it was her idea to bring a clipping to England when they left Cyprus.

Overall, I liked the book, but I felt like the present day chapters didn’t really go well with the flashback chapters. I felt a disconnect with Ada and her knowing about what happened to her mother. It is never told why Defne died. I felt sorry for Ada. I think the history in this book didn’t really fit with Ada and her father’s story in present day, but I liked the historic and flashback chapters more than the present day chapters.