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.

Historical fiction about the aftermath of World War II in Malaysia. I originally picked this up because a rec list mentioned the lush descriptions, and I was briefly in Cameron Highlands in 2018 and thought going back for a virtual visit sounded amazing. I got what I was looking for and a whole lot more besides. It was completely lovely--nuanced, complicated, hopeful, and also devastating.

The Garden of Evening Mists weaves back and forth between past and a late '90s present. In the "present" strand, Judge Teoh Yun Ling has just retired after receiving a serious medical diagnosis and heads back to Cameron Highlands for the first time in 40 years to meet with an art historian interested in the work of her late mentor Nakamura Aritomo, a famous gardener and woodblock print artist. In the "past" strand, it's 1949, and Yun Ling attempts to commission Aritomo to create a garden in memory of her sister who died in a wartime slave labor camp. Aritomo refuses the commission but offers Yun Ling an apprenticeship so that she can create her own garden. 

That's the plot. In practice, this means that the book is about 50% gorgeous descriptions of gardens, tea plantations, and jungles and about 50% flawed, complicated, traumatized people attempting to heal and have relationships with other flawed, complicated, traumatized people. It's thoughtful and moving but also very heavy. 

It snuck up on me and wove a quiet, hypnotic spell. It took me almost a week to read the first half and then I rushed through the second half in just a few days. Tan Twan Eng has such compassion for his characters, even as he refuses to let them off the hook for anything. He's also uncommonly good at writing women; I rolled my eyes a bit about the reveal of Yun Ling's romantic past (and maintain that the book would have been stronger and more interesting without that element), but I found her voice and character completely believable, both as a woman about my age and as a much older woman. I have complicated feelings about the ending, but again, it felt completely in character.