Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

(There will be spoilers.) I was very excited to read I, ELIZA HAMILTON, a book that promises "behind the most timeless of heroes stands an exceptional heroine." I love historical fiction. I write historical fiction. And, like millions of other people, the musical HAMILTON sparked an interest in the Schulyer sisters. I figured this book would be right up my alley. I was wrong and very disappointed. I do want to begin, though, by saying that the story is extremely well-researched and meticulously detailed. I am extremely impressed by the scope and the knowledge shown here. The settings are exquisite. However.... "Who lives, who dies, who tells your story." Great words from the musical, yes? I wish Susan Holloway Scott had put more thought into the idea behind those words. Ultimately, this is NOT a book about Eliza Schulyer Hamilton. It is the story of Alexander Hamilton AS TOLD BY Eliza. That's an important distinction. From the first chapter, the reader is bombarded by the minutiae of Revolutionary War politics, the war itself, and gossip. We hear, in some detail, about Eliza's parents and sisters (Angelica and Peggy), but virtually nothing about her brothers except that they existed. We learn nothing significant about her childhood and the story itself begins when she meets Alexander Hamilton. What follows is 400+ pages of a name-dropping Who's Who of the Revolutionary War and the early years of the United States. As Eliza wasn't directly involved with most of the events and people, she can only relate everything she heard/learned from other sources and it is tedious at best. There are interactions that feel very wooden and forced, as if they were only included so that a scandalous story can be relayed (i.e, the meeting with Peggy Arnold, so that the story of Benedict Arnold can be told). Eliza exhibits no real agency and few thoughts of her own. Her sole purpose in this book seems to be to rave and swoon about how marvelous Alexander is, how smart, how kind, how much they love each other, and how he can do no wrong. It's 400+ pages of schoolgirl gushing, ad nauseam. We learn very little of their children, with the exception of Philip and Angelica and when some of the others were ill. It's all about Alexander. The most significant events of the Hamilton marriage (the Reynolds Pamphlet, the death of their son Philip, and Alexander's death) are crammed into the last 55 pages (not counting the 1-page epilogue and the afterword). Philip and Alexander's deaths, surely some of the most devastating events Eliza ever dealt with, are delegated a mere 10 pages of coverage. Eliza lived for 50 years after Alexander died. In a book that claims to be about her, those 50 years are only covered in a 7-page afterword. That's it. Her fate, the fates of her children, her charitable endeavors, more than half of her life, all pushed into an afterword. If you are wanting to read a fictionalized, meticulously detailed, re-telling of Alexander Hamilton's life, then you will probably enjoy this. If you are in search of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton's tale, you will most likely be disappointed. Eliza deserves better.