Reviews

Het eiland van de verdwenen bomen by Elif Shafak

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evyautumn's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

mrsmangoa's review against another edition

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4.0

Élif has a wonderful writing style, honestly I’ve not read a book with such good intertwining of timelines in a long time that it seems like one flowing narration.

I like how she used the fig tree as a narrator and at the end finding out the fig tree was connecte to Defne was interesting.

Ada and Kostos and their surroundings were so well developed you can’t help but love their personalities.

However, I gave this 4.5⭐️s because there are a few things that could have been done better. These include:

1. developing the happy fig owners’ stories to know their background and history and also the way they ended up in the well dead.

2. There was so much focus on Konstaz and little to do with Defne. This story would have been so much more elevated if we knew more about her death, her life from the point they first separated and what illness she had. The way the writer just tell us she was found hanging and it wasn’t ruled a suicide is an injustice to her central role in the book.

3. More about konstaz mother and Defne’s parents and that relationship.

All in all this was a fantastic read and 10/10 would recommend.