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Memoirs of a Geisha

Arthur Golden

Start date: May 2, 2013

Finish date: May 31, 2013

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What Members Thought

Nov 01, 2007 Marla rated it it was amazing

Shelves: chick-lit, romance, adult, asian, couldnt-put-down, historical-fiction, girl-power, book-club, favorites, with-reservations

Great story about a woman who becomes a geisha in Japan. Geishas are entertainers more like celebrities and not to be confused with prostitutes. They could be compared to old fashioned courtesans, trained in music, dance and conversation to entertain men.

The misconception of geishas being prostitutes is from WWII when the American GIs were in Japan after the surrender, Japanese prostitutes in kimonos were shuttled into camps and called themselves geishas.

Geishas were sometimes mistresses of succ ...more

13 likes · Like · see review

Nov 06, 2008 Avigail rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-stars

The story was quite amazing, if a bit implausible (a geisha plucked out of the deep countryside? a Japanese girl with blue eyes?). The characters are great, although the description of the skills she had to learn to become a geisha were somehow less developed than descriptions of the hardship of life in Gion. Some episodes that describe how geisha entertain were good, but the gleeful enymity between main character Sayuri and Hatsumomo is neither explained nor properly developed - and then, just ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Mar 16, 2008 Vesra (When She Reads) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, borrowed, finished, country-black, movie-tie-ins, literary, 1001-books, list-chapters-indigo-readers-choic, read-2008, pub-seal-books

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. It took me a while to finish reading this book because I was indulging myself word per word. This book isn't the type of novel you should rush through. Regardless, the fact it is wrong in some places, like the part where Arthur Golden mentioned about the "mizuage", the book pulled you in like a few other books could do. Plus it took me a while to actually pick up this book and I must admit I did watch the movie first, then read it, cause I don't want to be disappointed with the movie. The book i ...more

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May 29, 2011 Yusra Asaad rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, 5-stars

From the mountaintops, the ocean looked like a crumpled blanket in turquoise with stains of dark blue..

I was skeptical before reading this book and kept putting it off for so long, because I didn't know what to expect by reading the memoirs of a prostitute, for that is what I thought a Geisha is!!

I was so mistaken, it starts with a 9 year old girl torn from her family and sister to be raised in a foreign city with complete strangers.. The horrors she faces, the hardships she endures, the practic ...more

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