Rating: 
Summary: Surprisingly enjoyable
Review: I read this novel quickly. It is a good story and has intriguing characters. I loved the ending. It was somewhat slow in the beginning but I quickly found myself looking forward to finding out what happened to dear Sappho. It is not historical fiction though, just complete and wonderful fiction. You'll have fun with this book.
Rating:
Summary: loved loved loved!
Review: I rented this book from the library about a year or so ago. I LOVED it! I'm back here now b/c I'm putting it on my wishlist for Christmas! I want to read it again and again. I'd never read Erica Jong or anything about Sappho. I saw Erica on The Daily Show and they talked about this book and I ran to the library. You should buy this book! Greatness!
Rating: 
Summary: Syrupy, predictable, and plagiaristic
Review: On our recent road trip, my girlfriend and I brought along some audio books to help us stay awake. Both were historical fiction set in ancient Greece. Sappho's Leap was read by the author, and her mangled pronunciations and over-dramatic tone may have influenced my reaction, but I don't think so.
Unlike Thermopylae, the subject of Gates of Fire (review coming soon), virtually nothing about Sappho is known, Ms. Jong was free to make up just about any story she liked. And she did. Sappho's Leap is a sappy love story with a long interlude where Jong basically plagiarizes Homer, only watering him down to speed the plot. Further, and to make matters worse, Sappho's Leap is not very well-written. It is melodramatic, banal, and overly adjectival. It reads like syrup. Jong apparently can't think of a word for vagina other than "delta" and nothing for penis other than "phallus," which words are like comedy catchphrases by the end of the novel.
The book starts out well. Sappho has climbed a cliff, but pauses to reflect on the story of her life (in media res, like every Greek story). She starts at the beginning, relating how she runs away from hom with Alceous, a famous Lesbian singer. They are exiled from Lesbos for trying to overthrow its tyrant, and her adventures begin. She is married off to a paunchy lush who lives in Syracuse, although pregnant with Alceous's child, to be named Cleis (mispronounced by Jong). When her husband dies, the adventure begins in earnest. After a stay in Egypt, Sappho takes off with the fabulist, Aesop, for Delphi, but is frequently sidetracked along the way. Jong sends Sappho to the Amazons on Crete (?!?) where she causes the return of Pegasus, the island of the centaurs, the underworld, Medusa's sister, etc. In an age where the Greeks occupied the majority of the Mediterranean, Sappho manages to elude everyone for a space of ten years or more, which occupy maybe four chapters of the book.
These adventures are trite, simplified copies of the Odyssey, and add almost nothing to the plot. Nothing really improves from there. Once Sappho returns to the land of the real, Jong wraps things up quickly and predictably. The novel ends with a syrupy, happy ending. Sappho and all her lovers and friends end up living on another random island with her friends, until her daughter sails up with her grandchildren. Ugh.
And don't get me started on the "poems" at the end.
This was my first Erica Jong book, and I think it will be my last. It gets two stars only because I need a lower rung for pulp romance.
Rating:
Summary: A great read
Review: Read this book and you will find romance, myth, legend, poetry, and history all weaved into one incredible tale. Jong follows the story of the poet's life while incorporating all the Greek myths that we have come to know, including Odysseus, Aphrodite and Zeus, Hades, Pegasus, the Amazons, the oracle of Delphi and much more. I was riveted throughout the reading of this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Erica Jong Does It Again
Review: Sappho's Leap is a masterpiece as well as lots of fun to read . Erica Jong has done it again- provided us with a page turner that is a historically factual tale interwoven with wonderful fiction that makes a very sexy fun story. For anyone who loved Fear of Flying this story again gives us Erica's imagination,intelligent insights and wonderfully wick sense of humor. This is a terrific spring/summer read.
Rating: 
Summary: An O.K. Sappho story
Review: Sappho's Leap is a nice work of fiction. Mind you the key word in this is Fiction. Over all I liked the story, but there are few things that I had problems with in this story. I have to point out that Jong made a few very good points. From the prologue: "So many stories about me. My legend confused with the legends of Aphrodite. Did I leap to My death for the love of a handsome young ferryman? Did I love women or men? Does love even have a sex. I doubt it. If you are lucky enough to love, who cares what decorative flesh your lover sports? The divine delta, that juicy fig, the powerful phallus, that scepter of state--each is only an aspect of Aphrodite, after all. We are all hermaphrodites at heart--aren't we? The delta is soft as Aphrodite the phallus stiff as Ares' spear. And no one wears anything for long but a coat of dust. Only the songs of passion linger" I really think that people can learn from a passage like this. It is things like this that make Jong's book worth the time to read. If you have never read any of Sappho's work I suggest you do.
Rating: 
Summary: Sappho Would've Leapt After Reading This
Review: That's what this book should have been titled. Erica Jong is, indeed, an incredible writer, but not here. Not even close. Her willingness to have two female characters candidly discuss the merits of dildos does not automatically qualify her as a feminist writer. I seriously doubt that Sappho, wherever she may now be, finds it entertaining or edifying to know that Erica Jong thought so little of her as to portray her as a dildo fan. If "Sex and the City" were still spewing out new episodes, perhaps Ms. Jong would have eventually suggested an episode featuring Sappho as a dildo salesperson and Carrie Bradshaw as her devoted dildo-loving customer.
Feminism is not about having to use "scary" words like dildo and (...)to prove how much of a woman you are. It's about knowing that you are enough of a woman to not have to prove your feminism to anyone...ever.
Rating:
Summary: The Gods (and the Goddesses) Must Be Crazy
Review: The life of Sappho, a writer of erotic songs, born about 2600 years ago on the Greek island of Lesbos, re-imagined as a beautifully told myth full of gods and goddesses and magical creatures. In the style one might expect from Erica (Fear of Flying) Jong, this myth is racy, insightful and funny ? imagine ?Clash of the Titans? with blatant sensuality. The story begins with our young heroine gaining the attention of Aphrodite and Zeus as they sit on Mount Olympus, the life of Sappho becomes a wager between the two of them, Zeus saying all her talents will be thrown away as soon as she falls in love. Fated to be favored by the gods, Sappho moves from one adventure to the next and has intense love relationships with both men and women, though Alcaeus the poet and father of her child is the main love of her life. Exiled from Lesbos for the crime of treason, she searches for love and inner fulfillment , her quest taking her to the island of the Amazons, to Egypt as companion to the Pharaoh, to the Oracle of Delphi, even a trip to Hades. Aesop the fable writer is a close companion to Sappho as they encounter centaurs, sirens, and even Pegasus the winged horse. Lots of fun.
Rating:
Summary: The Gods (and the Goddesses) Must Be Crazy
Review: The life of Sappho, a writer of erotic songs, born about 2600 years ago on the Greek island of Lesbos, re-imagined as a beautifully told myth full of gods and goddesses and magical creatures. In the style one might expect from Erica (Fear of Flying) Jong, this myth is racy, insightful and funny - imagine "Clash of the Titans" with blatant sensuality. The story begins with our young heroine gaining the attention of Aphrodite and Zeus as they sit on Mount Olympus, the life of Sappho becomes a wager between the two of them, Zeus saying all her talents will be thrown away as soon as she falls in love. Fated to be favored by the gods, Sappho moves from one adventure to the next and has intense love relationships with both men and women, though Alcaeus the poet and father of her child is the main love of her life. Exiled from Lesbos for the crime of treason, she searches for love and inner fulfillment , her quest taking her to the island of the Amazons, to Egypt as companion to the Pharaoh, to the Oracle of Delphi, even a trip to Hades. Aesop the fable writer is a close companion to Sappho as they encounter centaurs, sirens, and even Pegasus the winged horse. Lots of fun.
Rating:
Summary: Too much summary, not enough real emotion
Review: The reviewers have not been kind to this book and having read it, I know why. It has too much intellectual stuff and not enough true emotion. It has too much summary and not enough rendered experience. The locales, the historical references, the literary allusions all add up to prove that Erica did a great deal of authentic research about ancient Greece and Delphi and all that. But making a non-tendentious novel by the non-episodic coherent intergration of all this information is something she didn't do. You will get more enjoyment from reading her other works such as Fruits & Vegetables, Half-Lives, Fear of Flying, and Witches.
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