Rating: 
Summary: A captivating story; half real life, half fairy tale
Review: Memoirs of a Geisha is an intricately told life story that encompasses beauty, sadness, struggle, love, desire, unjustice, and happiness.It is a story of a young girl left with no choices in her life when she is left an orphan and is forced into a life as a geisha. She takes you through her bitter-sweet journey of becoming a form of grace and beauty, a talented entertainer, and a charmer and pleaser of men.It opens the curtains of a hidden,exotic world that you will want to visit again and again. Memoirs of a Geisha is a poetic story that leaves you feeling enchanted.
Rating:
Summary: Take it at face value
Review: When I read this book, I had no preconceptions whatsoever about the content or the author. The author states in the preface that he interviewed a geisha and wrote a book about her life. I interpreted that as "I found out some stuff about geishas and wrote a fictional tale based on that information". With the fallout that apparently resulted from this book (ie. that Arthur Golden really did interview a geisha and misrepresented her life), it's probably best to read Memoirs of a Geisha with an open mind.Having said all that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I am not particularly fascinated with Japanese culture but I loved the descriptions of the life of Sayuri. Parts of it made me gasp aloud. It's rare for me to find a novel such a delightful novel. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and delightful
Review: Excellent book. Is the noveled version of Golden's research. He interviewed a geisha who later wrote her own book: Geisha: A Life
by Mineko Iwasaki, both are great, one real, the other novelated. I do not recommend Liza Dalby's book, though, as it does not make sense unless you read these two first.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous
Review: Memoirs of a Geisha is certainly one of the best books I've ever read, the author so fully captivates the reader that by then end when I realised that it was not in fact written from a geisha's actualy memoirs I felt decived and surprised. This feeling of deception has turned into an enormous amount of respect for Arthur Golden.
Rating: 
Summary: Author has major personal issues with women
Review: I can say with great passion that this is the all-time worst book I have ever, ever read. I worked a seasonal job for extra money at a bookstore and overheard countless women at the sales counter raving over Memoirs of a Geisha. Exclaiming: "The author understands women so well!" I checked this book out myself to see what all the fuss was about. Not only was I highly disappointed, but thoroughly disgusted by this book. Golden obviously has some serious issues with the way he views women (primarily as manipulative, spiteful and misguided) and has somehow passed his personal conflicts off to a great number of readers as "just the way japanese society was in that era". In addition, the plot was poorly developed and by the time I reached the final third of the book, it felt like the author had just given up on even trying to make the story in any way likeable. It definitely affects my impression of someone when I find out they loved it! ...
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Read, Despite a Weak Ending
Review: Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It is among my favorites. I found myself being introduced to a foreign culture, and Arthur Golden does an excellent job of relating the reader to the characters. I learned so much about Japanese culture and the life of a geisha. "The author's beautiful prose took me back to a time and place of hanging lanterns, and of course, geisha. This book does a good job of showing that geisha are not prostitutes, like so many people think, but are rather dignified entertainers (Sanchez 2003, 1)." I agree with this quote. The author definitely has beautiful, and yet simple and easily comprehensible, prose. His detailed writing helps to bring the foreign culture alive for the reader. Also, he does dispel many common misconceptions about geisha, including the thought that they are prostitutes. He shows us the many aspects of a geisha's life. I felt very connected to Sayuri's trials, successes and experiences. The ending, while disappointing, could have been worse. The main disappointment is that the ending came off without a hitch, unlike most of Sayuri's other experiences. I expected some sort of hitch, and I was disappointed that the ending seemed a bit fairy-tale like. It amazes me that a forty-year old American male can put himself into the heart, soul and mind of a young, Japanese female and make her thoughts and emotions seem so real to the reader. I felt throughout the book as though I was reading the writings of a female.
Rating:
Summary: this book was a total offence!!
Review: Although there were geishas in Japan, there were only some who actually slept with men. This book is a total offence for Japanese women like me as some close minded ignorant western males still view Japanese women as being "geisha". Remember: 1) the author is a western MAN who depicts almost like European and Americans during imperialism. 2) Geisha whom he got many details from sued him for fabricating the truth and disgracing her name 3) He is not Japanese and didn't live in Japan long enough to know Japanese 4) the audience was not intended for Japanese but English speaking western who hardly know about Japanese
Rating: 
Summary: A Moving & Lush Geisha Memoir
Review: "Memoirs of a Geisha" is a wonderful research..featuring it's lush and graphic story line, and beautiful dialog. But "Memoirs Of A Geisha" is more than just good research, it's a fantastic, personnel, and (Not to mention romantic) exotic look in to this amazing art of Geisha, where eight year old girls are sold for prostitution if they can't make it as a Geisha, and young girls are sold for their "Mizzuage" if they do. (Which is basicallya ceremony where the young apprentice Geisha becomes a non-virgin.) When you are nearing the last pages, you wish it would never end, and tell yourself it couldn't... But all good things come to an end. And I guarantee, this book is very good.
Rating: 
Summary: A book of exoticism
Review: I cannot deny that "Memoirs of a Geisha" is very entertaining story. But to me, a reader having studied Chinese and Oriental culture for more than 20 years, this story is uninteresting, entirely written in a man's point of view. Throughout the book, it is obvious that the author is trying hard to convince the reader that the narrator "is" an oriental woman, i.e. the geisha herself. But he fails after all. And the result is, the story is full of stereotypes, especially stereotypes of Asian women (e.g. good girls and bad girls, rivalry between women...), Asian men (e.g. how they victimize women) and patriarchal culture. In short, it disguises itself as a history of Asia women's struggle (purely in the eyes of the West), full of out-dated symbols, cliche and exoticism, which only appeals to the readers in the West who are not similar with the Orient.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and enlightening
Review: Allowing for the authors creativity, this book is a brilliant telling of Chio's life in her own words. I was immediately drawn into her story, beginning in her tipsey house. Such a way with words, provoking such lively imagery. This really is one of the best books I've read. If you like listening to audio books too, I highly recommend listening to the unabridged version of this book that is available at audible.com (an amazon.com affiliate). I'm not a sales person for them! It was such fun to have it read to me by an author who made me feel like I was sitting at Chio's feet as she told me her life story. Whether you listen or read, however, you'll come away from this experience feeling a bit changed.
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