merri 's review for:

Geisha of Gion by Mineko Iwasaki

3.0

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This took me forever to finish but I finally did and am now even more excited to travel to Kyoto later this year! Mineko Iwasaki told her story after Memoirs of a Geisha since she felt it didn't do the profession of geiko justice (she was one of the geiko interviewed for Memoirs). This book was an interesting read and probably historically more correct than Memoirs but it rotated a bit too much around how easy and lovely Iwasaki's life was (a striking contrast to that of fictional Sayuri Nitta of Memoirs). Having an easy life doesn't sadly tell as good story as a harder life and this memoir is an example of that. It's a collection of memories and stories and facts about the lifes of maiko and geiko but in the end it wasn't very interesting. Three stars because Iwasaki was a bad ass who didn't let men treat her badly and she more or less always did what she wanted.