PanThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)... the arboreal narrator gives the author the chance to talk about ecological devastation, including the mass death of bats and slaughter of songbirds, as well as the migration of butterflies and eradication of malaria on the island. Though these are important themes, the tree explores them somewhat awkwardly, in a voice that veers between a didactic drone...and an overblown florid lyricism ... Shafak is a storyteller rather than a subtle observer of character; her writing depends on easily recognizable types that serve her event-driven narrative ... Throughout the novel, Turkish Cypriots are referred to as \'Turks\' and \'Muslims\'. In reality, Turkish Cypriot national identity is multiple and shifting ... Assiduously avoiding nuance...Elif Shafak is famous for representing those marginalized by the Turkish government, so it is bewildering to find her wrapping the bare bones of Turkish nationalist propaganda in platitudes about overcoming timeless enmities...to produce a novel that silences an entire culture and the diverse multinational identities of all Cypriots.
