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The Island of Missing Trees
June 2023: Immigration
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The Island of Missing Trees - Shafak - 5 stars
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What a lovely review! This is a book that has grown on me. It's so creatively written and compelling. I appreciate the quotes you put in your review. It reminds me of why I liked the novel so much.
Great review! I liked this book a lot too, and I love the quotes you chose. It reminds me that some books are worth highlighting and reviewing from time to time. This is one of those books. This author is really creative and I have two more of her books on hand, one on audio, and one on kindle.
I also read this book a few months ago, and while I liked it, I loved it a lot more after the book group discussion.
I definitely want to read more of her books. The only other one that I've read is The Architect's Apprentice. I liked it, but I had problems following the meandering style of the story.
my review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I only had the audio of that book and it was very long. I might have followed the story better with the text.
I had audio and kindle for the Island book. So many passages to highlight! It was hard to pick my favorite quotes.
I absolutely loved the three daughters of Eve!
Amy wrote: "I absolutely loved the three daughters of Eve!"It's on my list!
Great review! I really liked this one too.
Jgrace wrote: "Amy wrote: "I absolutely loved the three daughters of Eve!"It's on my list!"
It's on my list too, along with Forty Rules of Love, which has adventure tags. I think I'll put it on my new Subdue list tomorrow.
This is the second book for the month if I can get to it!! I have some driving this weekend…maybe I will see how long the audiobook is….
Wait - Forty Rules of Love is Adventure? That is on both my TBR and my Trim list...... I would love to read that this month. Ordering from the library ASAP!
Amy wrote: "Wait - Forty Rules of Love is Adventure? That is on both my TBR and my Trim list...... I would love to read that this month. Ordering from the library ASAP!"I can't attest to whether or not they belong there, but it has 8 adventure tags. I was going to put it on my subdue list, but I might just read it whenever.
Nancy and Jen - please check out the Trim thread for my new grand idea.
Nicole R wrote: "This is the second book for the month if I can get to it!! I have some driving this weekend…maybe I will see how long the audiobook is…."It was a good audio with two narrators. About 12 hours long, I think. I enjoyed it. I just returned to the text so I could make multiple highlights.
Amy wrote: "Nancy and Jen - please check out the Trim thread for my new grand idea."Saw it. A Forty Rules of Love buddy read works for me! I already own the kindle, which will be good for highlighting. I'll still probably get the audio.
FYI Audible has one of your upcoming books (Priory...) in the new sale.
Yes, but I can’t commit to like 25 hours or however, long it is in summer.
Audio performance by Daphne Kouma and Amira Ghazalla
5 stars
“Truth is a rhizome – an underground plant stem with lateral shoots. You need to dig deep to reach it and, once unearthed, you have to treat it with respect.”
I avoided this book for a while. By description it seems to deal with so many hot button issues, I was afraid that none of them would be approached with any depth. I also avoid books that are told, even partially in the voice of an adolescent. I will admit that, in the earlier parts of the book, Ada annoyed me at least as much as she troubled me. I was worried about her. For good reason.
This is a book about generational trauma. It is about the devastation of a civil war. It is concerned with religious persecution. It deals with the tragedy of homophobia. It is concerned with the adjustment of first and second generation immigrants. It is about coming of age and aging. It is about grief. And love.
The quiet, but articulate observer of this human history is a fig tree. The fig tree relates the pre-immigration history of Ada’s parents, Kostas and Defne. As a couple they are truly star crossed. Kostas is a Greek Cypriot. Defne is from a Turkish family. They are teenagers in love as the civil war overtakes Cyprus. The fig tree observes them from her home in the middle of a popular restaurant. Later, a cutting of this tree, which carries all of her memories, becomes another immigrant when years after the war Kostas and Defne relocate to London. “The voices of our motherlands never stop echoing in our minds. We carry them with us everywhere we go.”
I loved the voice of this fig tree. I loved the way she injected some humor into what might have been a completely bleak story.
“Throughout history I have seduced into my canopy droves of birds, bats, bees, butterflies, ants, mice, monkeys, dinosaurs … and also a certain confused couple, wandering around aimlessly in the Garden of Eden, a glazed look in their eyes. Make no mistake: that was no apple.”
I loved what she had to say about the human condition.
“Way too often, the first generation of survivors, the ones who had suffered the most, kept their pain close to the surface, memories like splinters lodged under their skin, some protruding, others completely invisible to the eye. Meanwhile, the second generation chose to suppress the past, both what they knew and did not know of it. In contrast, the third generation were eager to dig away and unearth silences. How strange that in families scarred by wars, forced displacements and acts of brutality, it was the youngest who seemed to have the oldest memory.”
As the fig tree relates the history of Ada’s parents, she also speaks eloquently about the interconnections of non-human species. I loved the natural history snippets. I have to agree with her pessimistic opinions about human interactions with other living beings.
“Even so, based on personal experience, I can tell you one thing about humans: they will react to the disappearance of a species the way they react to everything else – by putting themselves at the centre of the universe.”