The audiobook is not it - and that's okay.

The paragraphs are so abrupt that they don't translate as a coherent whole in audiobook format. I'm eager to give this one another go as a physical book. Until then, I don't know what else to say.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an arc of After Sappho in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this audiobook.

I ended up DNFing this book at around 60%.

This is fiction, but it read way too dry for me and felt like it was non-fiction. And not non-fiction that pulls me in.

This wasn't for me, but it could be better for people who love women's or general fiction.

This was a very interesting book, a little hard to keep up with at times. It was very well written. Thanks NetGallery!

I listened to this on audiobook, as opposed to immersing myself on the page, and while I loved listening to it, the threads were so complex that I sometimes had trouble following (while traveling, while going to bed). I adored the subjects: sapphic love, art and artist communities, performance art, etc. I am going to get a copy of this book to re-read on the page because I think it deserves that kind of attention. Certainly recommended!

This is a strange book on a more experimental side, I honestly had issues getting into it and I feel most of that was due to the format, this isn’t a book that I think is very suited to listening to in audio book format.

I loved this experimental, weird (in a good way), subversive look at the role of female creatives. A distinct and unique structure, mixed with historical insight and commentary. The narrator was excellent, and I loved every second of this book!

I really struggled through the audiobook. The structure of the book just didn't work well with in audiobook format. I think if I had read a physical copy or ebook, I might have enjoyed it more. However, the narrator just didn't do the book justice. And the plot fell a little flat for me.

After Sappho was a very interesting book. It was obviously very well thought out and a lot of research went into it. However, I don’t think the book was right for me.

I have mixed feelings about this book, and I'm not sure if it's because I'm not intellectual enough or if it was just one of those books that was not a fit for me. First, the positives: This book is incredibly well-researched. The author takes us on a journey through the lives of brilliant feminists, sapphists, artists, and writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. From Sarah Bernhardt to Colette, Eileen Gray to Lina Poletti, we get to experience the struggles and triumphs of a diverse and inspiring group of women. The writing is lush, poetic, and at times, furious and funny. Loved this aspect so much.

However, the structure of the book left me feeling confused. The story is told in a series of cascading vignettes featuring a multitude of voices. While this approach provides a glimpse into the lives of many fascinating women, it can be difficult to follow at times. The book jumps from one character to another, making it hard to keep track of who's who. This was especially confusing while listening to the audiobook, and I wonder if this book may have been easier to follow in print.

Overall, I would recommend "After Sappho" to those who are interested in feminist literature, women's history, and the lives of brilliant women. I learned so much while reading this one and because of that I still consider it well worth it.

Thanks a million to Highbridge Audio as well as Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Although I am not the biggest fan of short stories, I wanted to give this one a go as the premise sounded so interesting. Unfortunately, this read like an academic paper with no emotional depth whatsoever, which tainted my enjoyment of it.
Great concept, not so great execution!!
Thank you to RB Media and Netgalley for providing me of an audiobook arc in exchange for a honest review.

I loved the exploration of womanhood, freedom, and creativity. I enjoyed and appreciated the focus on lesser know women who pushed boundaries. However, I was not able to connect to the book as much as I would have liked, which lessened my enjoyment.

I didn't finish this and am rating it 3 stars to hopefully not affect the average.

I was so excited about this book, unfortunately, the way this story was structured meant it translated badly as an audiobook. It was difficult to follow and not very engaging. I'm hopeful this is an issue with the format and not the book itself and would consider reading it instead of listening.

After Sappho was an exploration of the lives of many women who sought out better lifestyles and were driven by the desire to be free from the dreary and often violent home lives they were forced into. The author did a wonderful job of crafting a detailed and poetic account of analyzing our desires. I enjoyed this book for its broad sense of seeking freedom from the ‘housewife’ construct.

This book was, at times, a bit difficult to follow. With the poetic prose filled sections, it was challenging to distinguish between characters and settings and so I found myself spending a lot of the time viewing the characters as one single character. This could be due to the narration and the monotonous tone, but I don’t think physically reading this would have made much of a difference. Another issue I found myself realizing was that every character was a white woman; there were no instances of a woman of color. Realistically, women of color experienced the same treatment and harbored the same desires as many of the characters described here in this book; it seems odd to leave out such a huge group of oppressed women.

Overall, this was an okay read. I wasn’t super entranced by the writing nor was I upset at it. If you like historical queer fiction and want a deep dive into how white women escaped their social constructs, this might be the book for you.

I tried to listen to the audiobook version of this story and sadly I did not get very far. I am not certain if it is due to the way the story is told or the narrator herself but either way, I could not get engaged in the story and ended up stopping early on.

I am sure this audiobook will work for some but it is not for me.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Your life is your poem. I really enjoyed this audiobook. I know next to nothing about Sappho and her poetry. I learned so much about her and all of the women she inspired. Highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and RB Madia for providing me with this ARC Audiobook.

After finishing this book I was very uncertain about what rating it should get and even how I felt about the book!

I very much enjoyed the concept of the book, a group of women throughout the history of mankind that has been pushing for freedom and gender equality. There were also parts that I laughed out loud due to the witty comments that some of these women were making about society and men and their expectations of the "weaker sex".But two elements made me unsure about the book. First, the lack of diversity among these women. They were all white and represented as modern, educated, and cultured women, which they were, but they were not the only ones. There were many women with the same qualities and some even more that were living in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. I wished the author would have taken some time to research those cases as well and included them too.

The other element was the style of the book. In parts, it felt like a series of short essays or even paragraphs that were just typed after one another, but in some other parts, there was a connection between one part to the next. That made it hard to stay connected with the "characters" and the overall "story" that the book was trying to tell.

All that being said I did enjoy listening to the book and am interested to see what the author will come up with next!

I’ve been meaning to read it for a while and finally got around to it a week or two ago.

At the turn of the century, feminists, artists, and writers who want to be more than society has prescribed for them based on their gender search for models and find Sappho. Some names you’ll recognize, others not, but there are over 100 women in these pages, and all want to tell their own stories. I’m always on board for stories about ladies by ladies, and I enjoyed this one.

It’s out now wherever you get your books and audiobooks

Well. I guess I should start by saying that I don’t think listening to the audiobook helped my opinion of this book. It’s told in a very fragmented style, and it just wasn’t something my brain could latch on to in an audio format, so maybe I would have liked this better if I were reading it with my eyes.

That said, the format of this book didn’t land for me. I’m usually someone who loves discussions of queer people throughout history, and I love the feeling of connection that many books can draw between queer people today and our predecessors. But between the sheer number of characters in this book and the choppy writing style, I couldn’t feel any connection to any of the historical figures. I could barely even keep them straight some of the time.

I can respect that Selby Wynn Schwartz took some bold risks in the format of this book, from the semi-biographical format to the collective “we” that narratives much of the story, and from a technical standpoint, it is impressive. A ton of research clearly went into this, and there are some devastatingly romantic passages. I’m just not sure that all these elements put together amounted to anything novel or interesting about lesbians in history, anything that I hadn’t already encountered or thought about myself.

I’ve also seen some reviews that mention the exclusion of women of color from the narrative, and the fact that some women who were included in the narrative held quite bigoted viewpoints that were never addressed in the book. I know next to nothing about Italy and France during this time period, but I surely noticed this with the sections about Virginia Woolf.

Also this is nit-picky, but the narrator’s Italian was…not great. No idea if their French or Greek was any good.

This narration was rough! Really didn't do the story justice, which was a shame. I think this might be one to read the physical/ebook with, or very sped up. Also lackluster content.