I don't often write reviews, but man, this book... Ugh. First off, the writing is slooooow. And pretentious. There's very little actual insight to be found. 
 I also thought Golden's fake "translator's note" in the beginning of the novel to be obnoxious. I suppose he was attempting to give the story some legitimacy, but I found it to be quite underhanded. There are many Westerners who are going to read this book as factual history. His handling of this preface combined with his outing of Mineko Iwasaki in the introduction casts some aspersions on his respect of the Japanese geisha culture. 
 For me, that alone is enough to knock of a couple of stars from an otherwise good book. But it turns out that the story is also kind of terrible! At first, I liked Chiyo. Simply put, she felt like a real girl. But all of that changed around the time she meets the Chairman. (view spoiler)[ Now, I'm not going to downplay this. I for realsies thought this whole thing was creepy as all fuck. Like WUT??? This twelve year old girl develops a crush on this muuuuch older man who is nice to her. Fine, I'll buy it. She holds on to this crush through eighteen years and becomes absolutely despondent when it looks like she may have to give it up. Like, seriously? Eighteen years? And this is seriously the sole motivation in her entire life? What in the actual fuck. She hardly knows this man, but she gives over her entire life for an opportunity to be his mistress? And lo and behold, she really does give up everything she has ever known to be with this man. Her friends, her country, her career. They're all nothing in the face of her unflappable love. Okay... Well, what does he sacrifice to be with her? Pretty much nothing. It's implied that he's on rough footing with his best bud for a while, but that it gets smoothed over eventually. Once again: Seriously? I mean this whole fucking thing is so damn creepy and fetishistic, I had to put the book down and walk away several times because I was so revolted. 
 This book sexualizes young girls to a disturbing degree. And I say this having been such a young girl not so long ago. I understand that the protagonist was being groomed for this sort of sexualization, and that the author may have meant this story as a critique of this occurrence. However. In the end, I really believe the author has romanticized this sexualization. I mean, the protagonist's reward for being exploited in such a manner is that she lands the man of her dreams. So, moral of the story: be submissive and allow yourself to be sexualized at a young age so that a wealthy businessman will pay to have you trained as his personal mistress after becoming infatuated with you when he is forty and you are twelve. 
 Side note: I love how Golden attempts to give his protagonist something resembling free will by having her rebel against the man who wanted to buy her only so that the man who has had her groomed from the beginning can buy her. One last time: Seriously? (hide spoiler)] 
 So, the actual plot of the book is extremely problematic, as described in the spoiler section above. But the characters are also extremely flat as well. There's a few characters that seemed to have some meaty backstories, but we never catch more than a glimpse. I found this to be disappointing. Even the protagonist's tragic backstory was largely abondoned after the first chunk of the novel. Chiyo and Sayuri are two completely different people. Which is the point, I suppose. Still, the juxtaposition doesn't work for me like, at all. 
 So, really, the only reason this book gets two whole stars is because 
 1) I actually did manage to finish it. 
 2) The writing could be pretty at times. Never particularly insightful, but pretty. 
 3) I did find some of the characters interesting. Alas, most of the time they weren't the main characters. 
 4) The historical context of the book was fascinating to me.