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.

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.

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.