The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak - 5 stars

[Barbara M]

This audio was beautifully read by Daphne Kouma and Amira Ghazalla. When I started the book, I knew I would enjoy hearing the beautiful accents but I was put off by this mysterious beginning. The person speaking the first part describes an unnamed island in the Mediterranean with a bit of legend and then a bit of 20th-century history.

The book then introduces Ada, a 16-year-old girl in London. Her father is Kostas, a Greek immigrant who is a botanist. Her mother, Defne, was Turkish but had died the year before the story. The story of Kostas and Defne, born and raised on Cyprus, unfolds throughout the book. We get their stories and other well-defined characters along with the history of the island. The voices and accents of the various characters are very appropriate throughout, whether the speaker is Greek or Turkish or, like Ada, born in England. The readers did such a superb job.

In the third chapter, we find out that the narrator of the first part is a fig tree! What?? Not sure this was going to work for me but I stuck with it because I was enjoying everything else. I'm so glad I did. This really is a beautiful book.