Rating: 
Summary: The novel is great!
Review: As a teenager, I thought that this novel would be boring and dull. But as a woman, I found this novel to be provocative and lively. The use of imagery and setting detail has made this novel into one of the best of this decade. It will continue to amaze readers for many, many generations to come.
Rating: 
Summary: How can a man write a woman's story such as this one.
Review: I probably wouldn't have bought the book had I known a man was the writer of a geisha's life story just because the perspective could be tweaked. I really enjoyed the book and then discovered it was written by a man. It was very well told and hard to put down.
Rating:
Summary: Thank God! An Amazing Book NOT On Oprah's Book Club List!
Review: I honestly chose this because it didn't have the silly O for "Oprah's Book Club" on the beautiful cover (that's stupid logo mars the book if you ask me-I don't care if it does sell books. As far as I'm concerned, it's just selling OUT!)Thankfully, this beautiful yet haunting tale of Geisha in the early nineteenth century turned into an outstanding choice. I am so grateful to have gained such knowledge of this art form while reading Golden's descriptive and sadly tragic story. The author deserves the gratitude of all westerners for opening our eyes to the beauty of the Geisha culture.
Rating:
Summary: WOW! --- I HAD TO READ IT TWICE!
Review: I don't remember when I've read a book and was so riveted by a character, time, place, profession, and gender ideas. GEISHA invited me into a world I knew little about, introduced me to a wonderful heroine, and held me captive until the end. The author successfully combines informational and educational aspects--complete and interesting descriptions of what it's like to train as a geisha---with prose that is both poetic AND plot-driven (hard to pull off, in my vast reading experience). For me, that's the best kind of novel--combining beautifully-written sentences with an entertaining plot to learn something new. The best book I read in 1998 (and again in 1999!)
Rating:
Summary: This book put you in the shoes of a facinating way of life.
Review: This book was a facinating voyage to a different culture. Although the book did go to long about spacific kimono information, it draws ont to this world to the point one can't put this book down. After actually going to Gion, it makes it all that real. The biggest dissapointment was that the charracter was fictional, as it is hard to believe this book is fiction. Two members of my family read this book and enjoyed it as well as I did. Me, because I am a history teacher and enjoy history, and my mother and sister, because they like the romance aspect.
Rating:
Summary: Poetically flowing and hard to put down
Review: I found this novel to be quite poetic in its own way. The words flowed in vivid details.I found that it was almost impossible to put this novel down. Events, people, and ideologies were descripted with certain details of other events for a comparison. When reading this novel you honestly almost feel like you are their in the Teahouses with Sayuri. You can almost feel the people that the author is decsribing while seeing them in your imagination. THis novel is quite fascinating and quite educational at that!
Rating:
Summary: A rich treat
Review: This book is full of sensitivity and respect for the complexities of every stage of life from childhood to elderhood; for the world of Geisha that is usually misunderstood and always vulnerable to quick uneducated judgment; for the subtle differences every culture holds and which need to be explored with special care to draw readers in and make them feel at home. With its single character focus, the book wrapped me up in a very foreign life that I came to care about - and a little romance never hurt anyone! This book was a treat that will stay on my bookshelf and will be re-read in future, when it isn't on loan to friends.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Incredible
Review: This book was worth every second of my time. I read it in a week and I am known for having the attention span of a gnat. Golden is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. You journey with Sayuri as if she were you.
Rating:
Summary: It was excellent, I couldn't put it down!
Review: Memoirs Of A Geisha was an excellent book. The details of the time period and of the kimonos were very descriptive. I laughed, I cried. It was almost five hundred pages and I finished it in 4 days. I recommend this book highly.
Rating: 
Summary: Geishas Just Want to Have Fun
Review: Although this book begins with a fascinating portrait of a young geisha-in-training, it ultimately disappoints. Why, after all she survives, does this woman long only to dress up, get men drunk, and make them laugh? Although she is said to excel at music and dance, she gives no impression of devotion to these "arts." She doesn't appear to learn anything during her wartime exile from the geisha world or from her associations with powerful men. She never gains any perspective on the strange profession into which she was sold as a child. At the end of this book, I felt I had spent my time reading a romance novel.
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