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.