This is such an audacious work of art, an invitation to do push the boundaries of audio storytelling. It is authentic in every way. I related so much to the stories—all the complexities of love and family.

Amazing podcast, listen!

This is such a great podcast - so compelling! I love it! Bingeworthy!

carefully told and beautifully produced

This is an absolute masterpiece

This is such a unique podcast, a true gem in this field. Thank you for making such great art for my ears.

So unique, so beautifully told. A different way to tell the story about the pressures put on women to have children.

Well produced podcast. Clever, funny, sad, smart. I loved it.

Comeee backkkkk 😓

This podcast is so amazing! I absolutely loved it and am sad it’s over. I related to this story very much & it was nice to hear a story like this brought to life! The ending made me cry because it was very real. It’s a must listen !

Both the subject matter (growing up the female child of Iranian Jewish immigrants) and the production style were new to me. This podcast uses the medium so well and with incredible creative breadth. I hope this show, and the author/creator, gets a larger audience.

The first serialized show I’ve listened to and I absolutely loved it! Sharon is incredibly talented and the show is very entertaining and well thought out :)

I’ve tried it so many times with fiction podcasts, and this is the only one I really like.

Changed my understanding of what a podcast can be. On a quest to look for more storytelling like this now.

Beautiful work that asks questions about how we tell stories as a way to shape our lives while simultaneously being so very relatable. Viscerally resonant. I’ve had versions of these thought monologues and conversations in my own life.

I am blown away by the honesty in this, truly amazing, one of its kind. It is beautifully done and shows how the human experience can be expressed with such immediacy through art and story

Really great work

I have never listened to a podcast that moved me this much. I appreciate how deeply vulnerable and personal it is and how much nuance, attention to detail and risk taking went into it. Thank you for making this.

I absolutely loved the way in which Melanie and her family’s stories are told. This was masterfully put together and the sound production was amazing. I found myself crying at some points and nodding in agreement at other points. I felt this series deeply! By the way. I shared this with many friends who would appreciate this type of podcast. I wish you much luck in future endeavors.

It was so well done ,I listened to it in one sitting. At the end I teared up beautiful thank you for such an enjoyable time.

Ok, so: As a longterm nonfiction junkie, I’ve been trying to bring more fiction/literature into my life — especially for reading/listening in the late evenings — & I have to tell you all how much I just loved the podcast “Appearances.” On the surface, “Appearances” is the story of a 36-year-old Iranian-American Jewish woman who wants to become a parent, & who deliberates between starting a family with her longtime on-again/off-again boyfriend, with somebody new, or by herself. But there’s A WHOLE LOT MORE tied up in that: Cultural differences with immigrant parents, musings on feminism, & of course the protagonist’s personal version of the baggage we all end up carrying from our childhoods, one way or another. Throw in some bifurcated narratives & a möbius-strip relationship with the fourth wall, & you start to get the picture. As a writer, as a parent, and as someone who flailed around with very similar questions at the age of 35-36, I thoroughly enjoyed binge-listening this.

Snap Judgment presented episode two, which is the only episode that I really liked. The next few episodes are interesting, but the series ultimately degenerates into the self-indulgent ranting of a disturbed mind. I ended up feeling very resentful that so much of my time was diverted listing to this depressing and depressive art work.Suicidal people should be warned not to listen to this.

I binge listened over 2 days. Entertaining and thought provoking. I can relate to the dilemma of the protagonist (Melanie) because my daughter is about the same age as Melanie and also hadn't found a suitable life partner when she became pregnant a few months ago. For that reason it was somewhat painful to listen to, and I had to take a break for a bit. My wife and I are so happy that we will finally be grandparents but are sad that the father (it wasn't planned - stuff happens) isn't the best choice for her (by our daughter's assessment, we don't judge - and we support her fully), however this plays out over the coming months. The series is experimental in that Sharon (the author) removes the 'fourth wall' and, as the author, has conversations with Melanie and Melanie's Iranian American mother. The author does the voices for many of the characters and she is funny and a great actor. I hope to hear more from Sharon in the future - kudos to you and thank you for sharing this intimate story and I wish all the best for you (and Melanie). Now I need to decide if I should suggest to my daughter that she listen to it. It might be 'too close to home'.

bold, hilarious, innovative! Sharon Mashihi has brought something new and valuable into the world. An emotional adventure of reckoning and self-knowledge. Can’t wait to hear more from her!

I have a lot in common with the producer/main character, Sharon/Melanie. We're around the same age and our parents immigrated to the US from Iran. We are progressive, feminist, and we're both artists who are deeply invested in the cross between fiction, non-fiction, and sound. We both also have Iranian parents who we love dearly who are hard to communicate with, but who don’t get along all that well. I liked The Heart and I was excited about this podcast based on the strength of Mashihi's Man Choubam. I really wanted to like this podcast but soon into episode 1/the prologue, I was already disappointed by the confessional desperation to provoke. I didn't want to keep listening but the surface similarities of our identities are so close that I couldn't help myself. The redeeming qualities of the show are the high production values, the sound mix and design is strong so it's easy to keep going. That's why I gave this podcast 2 stars. But beyond that, the show was incredibly painful for me to listen to and I binged it mostly so I could get it over with. Melanie/Sharon is judgmental of herself, but also of everyone around her. She wants to connect with people but then shows unrelenting disdain for them. Boyfriends are not spared, lovers are not spared. Any event that happens all comes back to Melanie/Sharon’s neuroses, and her desire to use the podcast production as some kind of public therapy. I was never able to fully empathize with the main character(s) because she manages to turn every single thing that happens in the world into something about herself, even her brother’s baby announcement party. Her narcissism is exhausting. Melanie/Sharon says she cares deeply about connection to community but there are few moments of positivity or celebration. I’m super cynical and critical, so I thought I was ready for it but this approach was beyond even me. All the family members are portrayed through an exaggerated performance of accented re-enactments which just serves to emphasize that the only character who truly matters is Melanie/Sharon. I'm not an accent acting zealot, I recognize that there is a place for a carefully placed moment of accented dialogue. If it was just a few moments of the script, I can concede that it could have the light-hearted and humorous effect that was clearly intended. But through the overly dramatic POV of Melanie/Sharon, these characters become stereotypes and lose all their integrity. I can’t believe a whole crew of seasoned professionals put so many ears on this show and no one stopped this stylistic choice. There were so many moments like this, where the story feels self-indulgent and exploitative, a strange self-loathing immigrant minstrelsy. Even in the moments when Melanie/Sharon is self-deprecating, it doesn’t feel like there is a potential of growth or transformation, just an attitude of superiority about the experiences that identify her. If there is a season 2 of this show as Mermaid Palace and Radiotopia aspire to do, I hope Sharon Mashihi can embrace a healthier, more ethical, gracious, and generous approach to continuing this story.

Thank you, Sharon, Melanie, KP and the rest of your crew for creating this work of art. Listening to the voices inside of one’s head can feel like cacophony. You turned cacophony into a symphony, thanks to your vulnerability, dissection and bravery in holding contradiction. Thank you for going deep and wide and including us.

This is a raw, beautiful, and heartbreaking podcast. I haven’t listened to anything quite like it before. I am so grateful to Sharon Mashihi for creating this work of art, and am hoping there is another season in the works.

The word “Intimate” gets used a lot to describe fiction podcasts, often for no reason. But like other Mermaid Palace works, this show takes us unflinchingly into some of the most personal places. The voice work is fantastic, and the sound work is art.

Really well done. Very talented story-teller. Thank you.

I was instantly sucked into this story! So funny and I’ve already cried. We need more podcasts like this.

Exquisite storytelling. I was blown away by this podcast.

I got chills every time the fourth wall broke

One of the best podcasts I’ve listened to all year. I literally laughed and cried. Parts of the story made me think of lives and experiences far outside my own little bubble, while parts were painfully relatable. Very well done!

If you care about things (ie: relationships, dreams, hurdles, self discovery, interhuman connection, love, unlove, babies, feelings) this show is for you. If you don’t care about things, listen to this show and you’ll change your mind.

I really love this show, so creative and powerful, coming from another point of view and magical...it really allows you to immediately get transported inside the story. Just love it.

Bingeworthy! Sharon is very talented. Great writing and acting.

✨✨✨✨✨

Wow, thank you for creating this. I’m an iranian american queer woman and let me say again, thank you. I felt so incredibly seen listening to Appearances. Also, so impressed with and entertained by all the character voices!! Please keep making art 🙏🏻

Really vibrant, exciting work. Really pushes audio art forward. I'm a playwright and it made me feel like I was at the theater again. Congrats to all involved.

This podcast made me laugh and made me cry with raw emotions, thank you, thank you ❤️you’re amazing!

This story was so interesting and so engaging- I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I finished it last week! Loved it!

… and I want to hear more! Beautifully told story. The tone, the narrative twists, the humanity captured me. Thank you for letting us into a world that often doesn’t get the spotlight.

I love this podcast. Coming, like Melanie/Sharon from a family of Jewish (in my case, European) immigrants, and having grown up in Los Angeles which is one of the largest Iranian populations in the United States, I can really relate to her story. She is a fantastic storyteller and I also love the way she impersonates the voices of her family members. All in all, One of the best podcast I’ve heard in a long time. I’m dying to know: did the woman who created this actually have a baby???!

Sharon created a podcast that gripped my soul. By the end of it, I was standing alone in my kitchen, crying my eyes out with a deep gratefulness for her willingness to share her story, her pains, and her dreams so vulnerably. Her work seems to capture the essence of human longing...and the complexity of relationships and family dynamics. There were moments I found myself frustrated with Melanie, moments I felt annoyed with Sharon breaking the fourth wall. It was a story that didn’t need to put on heirs, and thankfully never tried to. It was raw, it was real, and in a way it was through those moments of frustration that I came to so dearly love Melanie AND wish I could sit down with Sharon for a drink and be in the presence of this brilliant storyteller, who somehow balanced the stubbornness of her protagonist with a sense of deep empathy and relatability to this character, as well as to her true self. Thank you Sharon.

Painfully funny - at times painful, at times funny. Very poignant. I laughed out loud. Highly recommend. Sharon is incredibly talented. I would listen to anything she creates.

Made me fall in love with listening to podcasts all over again!

Brava Sharon! A brave, thought-provoking, excellently executed podcast.Although I am much older than Sharon/Melanie, I too was born into an immigrant family and felt similar pain, love and conflict around my family. I look forward to more from this talented, brilliant young woman.

I am absolutely fascinated by this show. I 100% recommend. The production is phenomenal and the story incredible. I neeeed more like this in my life!!

Funny, poignant, thought provoking. Just wonderful! Will make you want to call you mom.

I’ve been affected by this show in ways I cannot even begin to describe. Thank you