A review by whattaylorreads
Sapphos Leap by Erica Jong

adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I know that not much is known about the poet Sappho, and we have to piece together the story of her life from the small clips of her work that we have and references to her in other works. However, for a figure who wrote thousands of lines of poetry about love (and significant portions of that being understood as wlw poetry), Erica Jong made the interesting decision to focus her love story primarily on her first love, the father of her only child, Alcaeus. There are certainly references to her loving several people, men and women, but I have a hard time believing that someone who is a disciple of Aphrodite spends decades of her life pining for the love of the first man she ever loved. It's giving third-wave feminism written by a cishet white woman. I think I was hoping for something a little more similar to Song of Achilles, but alas.