It's raining, and you are sitting on the terrace, with a mug of hot coffee between your palms. You are staring at the droplets that fall on the floor, trying to muffle the chatter in your head. But there is something deep in your chest that stops you from feeling content.
Reading The Garden of Evening Mists was exactly this--trying to find solace despite the palpitations in your chest.

After taking an early retirement as a judge, Yun Ling Teoh seeks solace in the Japanese gardens of Malay where she spent time helping the Japanese Emperor's former gardener finish his garden in her 20s, a time after she was the only one to be released alive from one of the Japanese camps.
This garden is where she decides to reminisce and write down her story before her memory fades, the only thing she is sure of.

This book has one of most beautiful writing I have come across; it's almost ethereal. Such beautiful quotes that will soothe your soul. And apart from this, it is also recollection of, albeit fictional to an extent, the Japanese's reign of terror in Malay, now Malaysia.

I had a three-month-long rendezvous with the book. I allowed it to envelope me in its saccharine prose and sour history, the latter often making me keep it on the side because I didn't feel the need to know 'what's next?'. It did get a tad slow, especially as it's laced with melancholy, but perseverance led to me finishing my first ever Malaysian literature.

Read it when you want something slow and soothing. Keep it aside when you want to, because you will get back to it. The book has such a power.

‘We might be suffering from different illnesses, but it means the same thing in the end, doesn’t it? Our memories are dying.’ says Yun Ling. More than anything else, this book is an ode to memory.