The Floating World
Author: Cynthia Gralla
List Price: $21.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0345452917
Publisher: Ballantine Books (04 March, 2003)
Sales Rank: 358,671
Average Customer Rating: 5 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Mind-Altering Read
Reading this book was like reading a drug and becoming entwined in a foreign boundary-less netherworld of the senses. To say it was lyrical is totally inadequate. It was a labyrinth of discovery, a mesmerizing, poetic, erotic journey into the unknown. I've never, ever become immersed in a book the way I did with this one. I felt as if I'd tumbled into the story and become Liza. It left me dizzy, dazed, exhausted and wanting more. I highly recommend this book if you want to truly experience another culture. The language is pure magic and the plot ingenious.
Rating: 5 out of 5
The Floating World
Wonderfully lyrical novel, touching the senses like a rose bud unfolding - colors swimming in the light, fragrance blossoming as the petals unfold, but soft petals adjacent to sharp thorns. Intriguing, frightening, and spellbinding. A young woman both caught up in and energizing an exotic, erotic world of would-be geishas and hostesses in modern-day Japan. All my friends are now reading this mesmerizing first novel by Cynthia Gralla.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Beautiful and terrifying
Gralla's first novel has left me feeling a bit on-edge, as if I was caught off guard and saw something I wasn't supposed to see or wasn't quite ready for. The world she describes is gorgeous, seductive and terrifying. And her style of writing matches it perfectly. I'll have to reread it soon to try to get a better sense of what was real and what might have been hallucination, though I'm not sure it really matters, the two are seamlessly interwoven into Liza's reality. I may actually have nightmares about the maiko; I envision them as pale, pale creatures with sweet, quiet smiles and razor sharp teeth. I was unable to put this book down until I'd finished it; this is the book I'll be buying for all my friends!
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