thank you to NetGalley and highbridge for an arc of this book!

2/5

this audiobook was really slow and I think this book might've been more enjoyable in print format, the narration felt slow and just overall I had trouble feeling engaged with what I was listening to. I felt confused at time and had to rewind fairly often.

also, just not a fan of the lack of diversity in this book. lesbians of color rarely have our voices uplifted but have been the backbones of movement and community building throughout history. the lack of this was really noticeable and was disappointing.

I received an advance audiobook copy from NetGalley and really enjoyed listening to it with one caveat— I’d often get lost in the number of characters and who was who at different times. I think this might not have been an issue with the print version. After Sappho is a celebration of independent women… a lot of women. So many I couldn’t keep them straight and not that they wanted to be kept straight. The poetic writing contributed to a peaceful, enjoyable listening experience where I felt like the narrator was speaking directly to me. Ultimately, though, I walked away as if I had stared a painting that I was told was high art but I just saw a painting. Perhaps that’s my shortcoming and not the book’s.

after sappho by selby wynn schwartz: 3/5 stars

i think the format for this book would have been more enjoyable in print rather than audio. the narration was fine, if a little slow.

the book itself was at times engaging and enjoyable, and at other times a bit of a bore. i know there’s only so much that can be covered, but even being eurocentric should include more melanin. there’s a lack of an intersectional lens.

thank you to netgalley and highbridge audio for an alc in exchange for an honest review

I wanted to like this one a lot. It won a prize. The cover is beautiful. The premise had me. What went wrong? Not that this is exactly that, but I have issues with short stories. And while we follow several women along the courses of their lives, it's not really in a linear fashion. The hopping back and forth between POVs gets confusing.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher.

The narration of this book was exceptional. It didn't really feel like a novel. There was a moment in this book where the writer has Woolf say, "If you don't like a novel, put it down." I felt like maybe she was talking to me about this book. I don't think it was a novel and yet, it wasn't pure non-fiction either. It did make me want to do more research into some of the writers with whom I was unfamiliar so that is good.

I was so excited to read something that has such a lofty and complex theme. The writing of After Sappho is beautiful, paralleling the characters of the novel and something I appreciate when it's done well. I can only imagine the amount of time Schwartz had to dedicate to researching these characters and figuring out how to weave their stories together in a timeline that makes cohesive sense.

The sheer amount of people, places, and topics made this a little difficult to follow and I definitely lost my way a few times throughout. I am also not well-versed in historical European feminist writings, making me feel very out of my depth when trying to keep up with all of the conflicts, time periods, and issues of their time. While After Sappho is a book unlike any that I've read in the genre, I don't know if it's necessarily something that I'll pick up again in the future.

That being said, I most definitely checked out a Virginia Woolf book from my local library right after finishing this. So it motivated me to do my own research!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy to review!

I wasn't able to finish this before it was archived, but the first two hours of the audiobook were very enjoyable! I'm excited to pick up a copy of this book soon :)

After Sappho uses the life and works of ancient poet Sappho to frame and connect the lives of several queer feminists of the 19th and 20th centuries.

I really wanted to like this because I've read a lot of Sappho's work and I happen to be queer, feminist, and a fan of Ancient Greek history. Unfortunately, I believe After Sappho suffered from many of the same problems I had with Hidden Figures. The chief offense being that it's too hard to follow. Based on the description, I assumed this would be a relatively linear story about 3 women and how their commonalities tie them together across decades. However, there are so many names and dates just thrown at me and, especially since many of these women changed their name multiple times, the broad scope makes it difficult to remember who is who or who did what. For this reason, listening to the audiobook version was particularly challenging because I couldn't go back and reference past pages to jog my memory or double check who was being talked about. Going wider with the number of people mentioned meant that there was also less room to go deeper into the lives and emotions of these women, which contributed to the confusion. The lack of emotional depth or personality given to the women as characters made all their vignettes sound too similar and hard to distinguish from one another. Which is disappointing considering this is a novelization of their lives, so if anything it should be more engaging and emotional.

I know more facts about these women than before I read this, but if any of them came up in conversation I don't think I would be able to confidently contribute to a discussion. Truthfully, I am not sure what I learned and the binding framework of Sappho seemed forced at worst and tenuous at best.

3.5ish stars

This book was okay, but it didn’t capture my attention the way I hoped it would. Although I enjoyed some of the plot points and characters, much of the novel just fell a bit flat for me. It had some promising ideas, but the overall style of the story really didn’t work for me. I had high hopes, given the title and beautiful cover art; it wasn’t a bad novel, but it also wasn’t as interesting as I wanted it to be, and it wouldn’t be the first book in this genre that I would recommend to others. Overall, this one just wasn’t for me.

This is my headcanon about how this book was written:

So, remember those lists that we were like, given upon coming out in the 90s, full of Gay Historical Figures? Anyway, i feel like, a white woman was going through all of her stuff from when she came out bc her parents were moving into assisted living and selling the house, and she found that list.

Then she had a bunch of friends over for dinner a few months later, and she decided to show them all the list. Everyone was reminiscing and talking about how it's so boring that it's always only a list, and never a full story, and it's basically like a Sappho poem, these tiny fragments everywhere. So they decided to play a game: everyone would choose one woman from the list, pull up the Personal Life section of her Wikipedia, and write a story about her. Then they would come back together and build like an Alice Piasecki style chart of everyone, and someone--Selby Wynn Schwartz, i presume--would connect the stories into some sort of loose structure. But she forgot until right before submitting the book so they are only slightly connected.

Anyway, maybe that happened, or maybe i am just not literary enough for this book, but i DO like wikipedia articles and gay stuff, so, three stars!

This was an ARC and this review is unbiased, but it was shortlisted for the booker prize in 2022 so i am assuming it's already out?

Amalgamating and intertwining the biographies of important lesbian feminist thinkers and pioneers in order to show their cultural impact and tell their stories in context.
I loved the concept, loved the story, but the writing is where it lost me. The way the story is told feels out of place to the narrative. I wish I could explain it better. I'm still giving it a high rating because it's beautiful I'm just dumb.

There's a lot of great in this historical novel. I enjoy how the author weaves through so many women's lives. The writing style is almost poetic, and the narration is lovely. My only complaint is how eurocentric the book is. I wish women of color were given a role in the novel.
Definitely worth a read, just now it's not terribly diverse.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This book was very interesting and eye opening, but made me incredibly sad due to how women have been so oppressed in this world. The book was difficult to follow at some points as it does bounce around, but is still a very powerful and moving book.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher of After Sappho for allowing me to access this audiobook early in exchange for an honest review! After Sappho is a daringly powerful book, wrought in intricate detail to tell a story that spans centuries. I sincerely enjoyed it.

After Sappho is written in a combination of artful, evocative poeticism and knowing, omniscient prose; the result of this effort is a sense of grandiosity that radiates from every word. This large-scale atmospheric power as afforded by the writing complements the themes of the narrative to tie the whole book together in a way that feels completely genuine. The more poetic sections of the novel fit perfectly with the inclusion of Sappho’s fragments; when phrases are repeated across the book, they lend poetic emphasis to the prose itself, echoing Sappho’s timeless presence in the story. I particularly enjoyed how such repeated poeticisms were recontextualized between the characters and by time, developing new meanings and depth as the book continued. Not only were the various interpretations of the phrases clever and engaging to read, but they also served as contrasting glances into the minds of the characters, shining a light on the variance in life experiences that the narrative’s themes emphasize.

The interconnected lives of the characters in the novel are its main draw; the scope of this novel is quite an ambitious one. We see dozens of characters in painstaking detail, the intricacies of their lives and the forces that shape their work all given time in the spotlight to establish the influence each character has on one another. After Sappho’s historically-bouncing vignettes give the grandiosity of the narrative footing in its very structure, emphasizing its scale just as the writing does. Characters are portrayed in various contexts: their early lives, their mythologized statuses as historical figures, their self-perceptions, the view others hold of them… This commitment to multifaceted character examination is the driving force of the novel, evoking irony and endearment and poignance and authenticity all at different times. Personally, my favorite chapters are the Virginia Woolf-centered ones, possibly because the interwovenness of After Sappho’s characters is similar to that of the characters in Woolf’s own writing; I found that reflection fascinating. This book’s characters are authentically detailed and complex, all with similarly detailed and complex relationships to each other. It’s invigorating to be immersed in the web of connections it weaves.

I did have a few minor issues with this novel; most notably, I found some of the book a bit difficult to follow. The leaps in time and space, for the most part, connect the characters further to each other, but sometimes-- especially if one is reading casually or quickly-- the rapid introduction of so many new settings and names and the leaping between them can become confusing. The interwovenness that After Sappho commits itself to thus reads more of a tangle than a fabric, and takes time to tease apart. This problem is relatively easily remedied, though, by slowing down the pace at which one is reading or listening to the book, and it smooths itself out somewhat as one eases into the novel.

Other than that, I have one audiobook-specific concern: I felt that while a vast majority of the audiobook was narrated with exceptional skill and was greatly pleasant to listen to, there were a few moments-- namely, the occasional French phrases-- that were somewhat difficult to understand on a pronunciation level. Mostly these are not entirely crucial to understanding the plot and can be interpreted with some effort, so this issue is very slight.

Ultimately, After Sappho is a powerful read, with intricate attention to detail in character and writing that lends a unique feeling of historical salience to its plot. It shines most brightly in its characters’ relationships to one another and its occasional poeticisms; the book’s themes about writing’s influence in shaping history are a natural complement to its own evocative writing. After Sappho is a bold, intelligent exploration of historical sapphic identity-- and the diversity of the lives Sappho has impacted and continues to impact today.

2.5

After Sappho is an interesting experiment in reclaiming histories beyond the cisheteronormative patriarchal lens they’ve traditionally been viewed. Schwartz traces lives of a number of women from the 1870s through to the 1920s who lived outside the “norm” and fought to have their identities seen and accepted, whether that be their right to vote as women, their right to love as lesbians, or their right to express their gender truthfully as trans or nonbinary people. While some of these people are well known in the modern era like Virginia Woolf, Colette, and Josephine Baker, others are less known and I found myself taking note of many names for future research. While the cast as a whole is quite large, Schwartz focuses mostly on Woolf, Natalie Barney, Lina Poletti, and Sibilla Aleramo.

What makes this novel unique is that it is told as a series of fragments and throughout the first person narrator speaks as a collective we, representing not just the named women but also every other woman who acted beyond the bounds of the moral “correctness” of their era. The prose is poetic and the fragmented stories almost mimic the fragments we have of Sappho’s poetry. While this makes the book unique, I also think it will be a detractor for some.

For me, I liked the prose but I don’t think audio was the best way to read this book at least not on a first read. There was nothing wrong with Daniela Acitelli’s narration but given the structure of the novel I often found myself lost. I also question the lack of diversity. Yes, the author is focused on Western European history but I have a hard time believing the only “worthy” people of color to mention are Ada Smith and Josephine Baker. I just think for a book that is marketing itself as a celebration of women trailblazers that offers hope for the present and future, a little more care should have been taken to represent those beyond the well-off artistic white women of the era.

After Sappho is the story of womanhood, women and the fight for freedom. Taking place at different points in time to follow a few different women, this story is a wonderful illustration of the challenges women have faced at different points in history. We can see how hard we've come and how far we still need to go.

I feel like I just got a massive run-through of the histories of a handful of gay women in the early 20th century, which I’m not mad at, but if a book is marketed as historical fiction, I’d like a bit more fiction in my history lesson here. It’s like this book was originally written as nonfiction and was changed slightly later—there was no interiority at all, little insight into the feelings and thoughts of these women, which kind of defeats the purpose of making it a fictional account. The way the story is woven is interesting, and I sped through the vignettes, but it wasn’t quite what I expected. I feel no connection to any of the characters, and honestly it feels wrong calling them characters, because they were real women, and the novel makes no attempt to distinguish them from their historical counterparts. Instead, it’s just a more in-depth look into their lives and their lesbianism often overlooked by male historians. Again, interesting, but I just don’t see the fiction part.

A quick note on the audiobook, as this was the ARC format I obtained: overall, I thought the narrator did a fine job, but every time she said a word or, god forbid, a name in Italian or French, I cringed a bit.

Thank you RB Media and NetGalley for the audiobook ARC.

I love the concept of feminist literature and I heard a ton about this book during Booker Prize season, so when I saw the chance to listen to the audiobook, I was super happy. I love the concept of the story following all of these different women.

That said, I could not connect with the audiobook. I think due to the unique format of this book, it probably works better if you read it rather than listen to it. That way you have time to absorb all of the tiny details. I just felt with the narration that I couldn’t follow it as easy as usual.

All in all, I like the concept of this book. I just think audio is not the correct medium for it.

DNF’d at 15%
This reads too much like a lecture on these women, but without any feeling. It’s too bland for what’s happening. It’s supposed to be a fictionalized account of real things these women did, but comes across more as sterile bullet points. It jumps around so much between years and people that I have no idea what’s happening to who.
I have no idea what to think about this book. Is it well written? Poorly written? Is the voice acting good or bland? All I know is that it’s not for me.

I was super excited about this book and the whole concept but listening to it was absolutely brutal. There are SO MANY characters and the story bounces around so much that this book is definitely better being read rather than listened to. I found it incredibly difficult to get into and to retain. Very disappointed that I have seriously no clue what happened. Might try it again in the future but for now it's a 2.5 from me.

I received this audiobook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review