This is my third copy of this book. THIRD. The first copy had been stolen (why?) and when I finally got my hands on a second copy, I'd lent it to a friend who had never read it (she claimed she loved it though, so - yay!) and ended up never getting it back before I moved out of state to a different one. Devastation, I tell you. So now that I've gotten a hold on this one, I am never letting it go. Never. If someone claims to have never read it, I'll send them off to the library or to the nearest bookstore. This baby is staying in my possession. Okay, now that I've gotten that off my chest, we can start my review for this book which I so clearly love. 
 Admittedly, before I ever picked up the book, I came across the movie. The movie was beautifully filmed and the story behind Sayuri was moving and so wonderfully told. I'd always wanted to read the book but for whatever reason, had never gotten a chance to get a hold of it. Besides that, each time I went looking for it, it was either not in stock or someone had just gotten the last copy of it. The lack of availability made it all the more imperative for me to find that novel and bury my face in it. Fast forward about a few years later (yes, it took me that long to finally get my first copy), and I finally read it. I fell in love so hard that if I could have, I probably would have married the book. 
 Have you ever come across a book that just captivates you so much that you know know you're never going to find another one like it in your lifetime? That's how I felt. This book and I - we're soulmates. 
 Anyway ... the book starts off telling the story of a young girl named Chiyo from a small fishing village in Japan who, after her mother falls deathly ill and passes away, is sold (given away?) along with her older sister, to become a servant in a geisha household. She spends the first several months or so looking for her sister in the town they'd been separated in but after Satsu leaves her behind to find herself a different life (assuming, since it was never explained what ever happened to her), she instead begins her training to one day become a geisha. The book then goes into how she grows up to be trained beneath a popular geisha before becoming one herself and changing her name to Sayuri, by which she is known as from then on. I'm probably explaining this book all wrong or making it sound flat, but it is not. 
 I think what I truly loved about this book is the lyrical prose by which Arthur writes in. The words flow and ebb throughout the pages so hauntingly beautiful that you just cannot help but get sucked into the story and become completely enchanted. You find yourself as part of the Sayuri's story as she is herself and you cheer for her, and become angry for her benefit and sometimes, you even want to set her aside and give her a what's what for certain behaviors. This book just completely amazed me and swept me off my feet and if I have to keep buying myself copy after copy after copy, then so be it.