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Title: Does not live up to the hype
Review: Though Mr. Golden constructs a reasonably good story, he fails to energize his characters with any purpose or spirit. Sayuri's love, the driving force of the book itself and the only reason I kept reading, remains unexplained and unfulfilled right to the end. Why did she love him so much? Why did she love him at all?! Why did her rival geisha hate her so much? Sayuri herself is an unintended dichotomy. The other characters say repeatedly what a clever, witty woman she is, but the reader only sees an undecisive and pliable girl whose ultimate fate is a matter of dumb luck, not will. In an odd turn, I hope that the film version is better than book.
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