Wednesday, October 11, 2017

On Books 6: Hamilton's Battalion Part 3: That Could Be Enough

This review is the third and final part of my series on Hamilton's Battalion, which I was given an ARC of by Rose Lerner, the author of the first story in the book.

I have to say, I was not as enamored with Alyssa Cole's That Could Be Enough as I was with the other two stories in Hamilton's Battalion. Part of that is certainly that I'm not in the target audience. A story about two professional black women falling in love in early-19th-century New York City was certainly not written for a whitish girl like me to see herself in, and I'm not complaining about that. Not every story should be for me.

I do, however, think it's worth talking about the fact that that this story relies on two romance tropes that make me really uncomfortable regardless of who's falling in love.

Saturday, October 7, 2017

On books 5: Hamilton's Battalion Part 2: The Pursuit Of... (Spoilers)

This is part 2 of my review of Hamilton's Battalion, which I was given an ARC of by Rose Lerner, the author of the first story in the book.

I don't feel like I have as much to say about the second story, Courtney Milan's The Pursuit Of..., because this time it's not my identity at stake. But I can say that, once you've caught your breath after reading Promised Land, you should absolutely dive on into this one.

Monday, October 2, 2017

On Books 4: Hamilton's Battalion part 1: Promised Land

I've always been a big fan of stories about the American Revolution. I know all the lyrics to 1776. I watched Liberty's Kids religiously when it was on PBS (the cartoon with Walter Cronkite as Benjamin Franklin. Anyone else remember that? No? Moving on). I wish I had the money to see Hamilton. So when Rose Lerner offered me an Advance Reader's Copy of Hamilton's Battalion, a collection of three novellas about soldiers who may have served under Alexander Hamilton at the Battle of Yorktown, I leaped at the opportunity to read it. (Full disclosure: this is also an opportunity to actually get people to read my blog.)

Lerner's story, Promised Land, is the first story in the book. It's about a Jewish woman named Rachel who leaves the man she'd married for financial stability and joins Washington's army disguised as a man. It's also about me. 

I have never felt so represented in a book before. It wasn't always a good feeling: Rachel and I are under a lot of similar pressures and stresses, and she has a clear sense of purpose and a coherent plan for the rest of her life that I don't feel like I will ever have. But for once, I feel like somebody in a book really understands what it's like to be me.