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Memoirs of a Geisha

Arthur Golden

Start date: January 16, 2012

Finish date: February 16, 2012

Discussion: ♦Buddy Reads♦

Discussion leader: Shellbelle

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♦Buddy Reads♦

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What Members Thought

Nov 01, 2007 Marla rated it it was amazing

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

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

Oct 17, 2008 Book Concierge rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: own, favorite, movie, 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, book-club, culture, war, concierge, strong-women, world-war-ii

5 ***** and a ❤

An engrossing story - a window into another world, another culture, another time. Sayuri is so passive, she infuriates me at times. Yet I am deeply disappointed in her for the way she treats Nabu - her one aggressive act.

I first read it in March 1998. A year later one of my book discussion groups chose it and I read it again. When the movie came out my husband surprised me by saying he wanted to see it (he had been in international business and spent a lot of time in Japan). Beca ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

Jun 25, 2010 Thenia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: reviewed, romance, standalone, 2010, asian

A beautiful, yet very melancholy book, with a visually stunning movie adaptation with an amazing soundtrack. ...more

6 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

Apr 13, 2008 Laurel rated it really liked it

Shelves: literature

I am sometimes hooked by a book. This is one that I started late on a week night, and didn't put down until I had read it cover to cover. My sleep cycle was off for a few days, but I loved the book. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

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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Jan 24, 2009 Brandi Moore-Declue rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I read this book years and years ago while I was working at a book store. I thought the writing was unlike anything else I had read so far, it was stunning, as was the story. This is a book that everyone should read at some point in their lives.

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