I'm really not sure if I like this book or not. I think I did - it was a very challenging read, both in terms of the subject matter and characters, but also just from the formatting of the book. I believe this was intentional, as a way to convey the turmoil and confusion felt by the characters. It was a much heavier read than I was prepared for, but I am glad I read it. There aren't many books on this subject, and it is an important one.

I had my moments with this book. The storytelling of Yugiri and the Cameron Highlands was written impeccably, and I must admit, did seem otherworldly. A lot of the imagery was poetic, and I thoroughly enjoyed it when these places were described in detail. I also loved the differentiation between the characters, the accents really came to life on the page and I could hear each one clearly and distinctly. More often than not, however, I struggled to even finish a page. It was a combination of everything, the narrator having this holier-than-thou attitude was so offputting that it genuinely frustrated me - and it wasn't even over the Japanese guards who had taken her to the slave labour camp, it was over everyone. I think there were two characters where this wasn't the case, her sister and Aritomo. It was also some of the actual plot. At times, I genuinely asked myself why what I was reading was relevant - it added nothing to the story, and just seemed like it was filler. I enjoyed bits of it, but would I recommend it? Not necessarily.

The descriptions of the natural setting were very detailed and often very
poetic but at times, personally, I felt like they were a bit too much, both in terms of quantity/length and in terms of overuse of similies (I get that similes are nice but enough is enough).

I think there were also too many of what I would call "explanation sections", basically sections that feel more like an infodump about a certain topic (for example gardening practices or the art of tattoos) and they do tend to stick out a bit too much and take you out of the narrative flow.

Also, sometimes I found the time jumps in the narrative a bit confusing and it took me a little bit to re-orient myself and place the episode within the story's timeline. 

I struggled a bit to connect with the main characters (by the way, I don't know if I find the romantic aspect of their relationship really well-developed on the page and convincing) and, at times, I was actually more drawn towards secondary characters (such as the storyline of Tatsuji).

The story was interesting enough for me to want to keep reading until the end but it didn't really captivate me completely. I think the section narrating the experience of the internment camp, though one of the most harrowing, was also the most moving and impactful.

I didn't dislike this book - a 3 star review for me means that I found the book to be pretty evenly balanced between things I liked and things I didn't like, but weighted enough to the positive side that I'm glad I read it. But I do have to say I'm disappointed, because I kind of expected to really like this book and I can't quite pinpoint what it was about it that let me down.

I do know I found The Garden of Evening Mists to be very slow paced, to the point where I had a hard time getting through certain sections of it. I don't mind a slower paced book and there are many books I absolutely adore that took some effort to get into at the beginning, but this one felt more like it was dragging. I do know that I found the setting and descriptions to be beautiful and entrancing, but had a much harder time connecting to the characters. I wrote in my review of Migrations about my struggle with stories that are told from grief-stricken/traumatized/numb protagonists - sometimes it works for me and I certainly understand that it's a very realistic portrayal, but it's easy to find protagonists like that distant and hard to connect to. And Yun Ling is hard for me to connect to, no matter how much I sympathize with her. And finally, I do know that I found the structure of this novel confusing, with it very unclear when various events were taking place. Even though I often love stories told non-chronologically, here I'm not sure what it added.

That all being said, there are several things I really enjoyed about this novel. For one, the writing style was beautiful and there were several quotes I highlighted, something I only do when I'm really drawn to. I was really interested in learning about the history of Malaysia, China, and Japan during WWII and the art of Japanese gardening, both of which are woven into the story very well. I was really taken with the concept of shakkei, the art of borrowed scenery, a Japanese gardening technique where the environment outside of a garden is used to augment the experience of being in the garden. Tan Twan Eng uses this concept in both a literal and metaphorical sense in a way I thought was very thoughtful and clever. And finally, this book did result in me feeling compelled to read several articles and essays about Japanese gardening and horimono, Japanese full-body tattoos. I consider this (feeling the pull to learn more about a topic) the mark of a successful historical fiction novel. So although I was disappointed not to love it, it was certainly worth the read for me.