The Island of Missing Trees is a captivating novel narrated by a Ficus carica. It sheds light on the Cyprus war in 1974 that divided the island into a Northern Turkish and Southern Greek lands! By reading Elif Shafak's love story that ignited between the Greek Christian Kostas and the Turkish Muslim Defne, I traveled in time to another epoch. I lived the hurt that the soldiers, rebellions, politicians, and sometimes friends or neighbors inflicted on nature and islanders. I also sensed the bitter feelings that the homeless, immigrants, runaways, and displaced go through trying to forget the past, settle in a new place, and the difficulty to adapt to a different culture. This novel also touched on numerous vital topics including the desire to live on our terms without being judged, climate change, bullying, introverts, and feminine topics (gender norms).
There is a summary about it in my blog - https://www.tamarayousefmousa.com/