The Island of Missing Trees

1. General Impressions

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

• The Island of Missing Trees features two love stories—Kostas and Defne, and Yiorgos and Yusuf—and the reader is privy to the endings of both these love stories fairly early on. How does knowing what happens to both couples upfront color your reading of the novel?
• A number of Elif Shafak’s novels propound the interconnectedness of life and the universality of human nature. How does she uniquely explore these ideas in The Island of Missing Trees?

2. Personal Reflection and Connection

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

• Who do you think is the true protagonist of the novel, and why? Which of the characters’ experiences or worldviews do you most resonate with?
• Ada struggles to consolidate her identity in the absence of any cultural or historical context presented to her in her early years. How did you make sense of your own identity growing up? What are the elements that have shaped you most predominately—family, personal history, ethnicity, nationality, or something else altogether? Have you experienced opposing ideas or gaps in any of these elements? How do you reconcile them?
• Despite being the daughter of a Greek man and a Turkish woman, England-born-and-bred Ada speaks neither language.