Dear Mr. Golden,
I would like to start off by saying that i adored your novel Memoirs of a Geisha. Your way of expressing what life was like for these women at this time is very easy and entertaining to follow along with. The story of young Chiyo captured my heart. I was easily able to follow along with the rest of the story because i was so intrigued from the first page. You were able to combine a love story, and adventure, and at some parts even a mystery all into one, and for this I applaud you. You provided historical accuracy, along with some interesting twists of your own. I have heard that this was easy for you to do because this was a subject that you were interested in, and you did a wonderful job. You were able to take something from a culture with a totally different language and belief system and make it easy for your readers. You did a wonderful job explaining and providing background on Japanese culture at that time, that reader may not have otherwise known.
I especially loved how we were able to follow Sayuri from the time she was nine up until she was an old woman living in New York City. By this, we were able to connect with her character on a personal level, and this was very beneficial. You also did a wonderful job throwing in surprise twists for your readers. There were some things that i read that I was not expecting, but in the end that's wheat made this novel so wonderful! Thanks to your writing, i believe that women and girls of all ages will be able to fight through their problems in life with the attitude that they will conquer whatever they face, just as Sayuri had. Great job!
Sincerely,
A pleased reader
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Dear Arthur Golden,
I would like to say that i did not appreciate you novel Memoirs of a Geisha to the extent that some other readers have. Personally i found that your poor choice of words and sentence phrasing was difficult to follow along with. I got so distracted by the "You knows" that i couldn't concentrate on the story. No, I'm sorry, I do not know as the narrator suggests i should! Sayuri's first person voice is a very good idea, but i believe that this could have been done in a much better matter.
I found while reading the story that it became difficult to follow because it jumped around so much. At some points, there would be such specific detail about a day's time, and then suddenly we would skip five year and be at a new point in the Characters life. It would have been helpful if you could have worked to spread this out better.
While the idea of the story was intriguing, the writing style could have been much better.
Sincerely,
A dissapointed reader
