Writing as crisp as the air there, which smelled of apples

I said Tahmima Anam's writing in A Golden Age seemed dispossessed yet almost three quarters of the way through the book, as Rehana flees Bangladesh, she describes the hill country of Assam as crisply as the air there, which smelled of apples:

Silchar, Shilliguri, Shillong - hill stations with names like rustled leaves, where clothes did not flap, exhausted, in the humidity, where the air was dry, the lips chapped, the hats possible. It smelled of home.

I'm wondering if Assam is the author's home, and whether the book is as good as they say it is, and I'm simply unprepared for it.