(3) Base Camp
Sayuri would love our tough-o-meter's metaphor of mountain climbing. "This book is as difficult as walking up a mountain barefoot through the snow." "I read this book so fast, it was as if the pages were being turned by a spring breeze." "That book was as difficult to understand as the oldest boulder in Kyoto."
The book is wordy, with Sayuri's numerous metaphors adding to the word count, but her story is colorful, enjoyable, and easy to read. There are a few tricky Japanese words, but most often they are translated to English, and the few that remain in Japanese are easy to pronounce.