Love & War, Melissa de la Cruz

Love & War, Melissa de la Cruz (2018)

Themes: Historical Fiction, Romance, Young Adult

Format: Hardback/Audiobook

Pages: 384

★★

Spoiler Free

This book was a very highly anticipated release for me this year, having loved the first book, Alex & Eliza so much. However upon reading about 100 pages of this book I felt completely bored! The story was following a very boring plot with all the potential moments of interest cut out. We don’t see Alex and Eliza’s relationship growing in-between the last book and the Battle of Yorktown, we don’t see them have their children, nor their lives together grow other than moving to New York. I wanted more of Alex and his friends, the things that build his positive character for us!

Generally I expected a lot more from this book, but it just felt like I was reading a nonfiction recounting Alex and Eliza’s romance. Sure the characters are those I love from being a huge Hamilton nerd, but I needed more than just good characters. Alex was becoming moaning and annoying and you could see his demise so clearly that it just became frustrating. Eliza could have had more kick to her too, she was definitely bad ass and different to many women of her time, but she lacked the gumption the Eliza we see in the musical has, as did Angelica on that matter.

Most of this book was set in New York where Alex and Eliza have moved to start their married life together. It feels like they’re there forever, never moving, never developing. It just became boring to see them stuck in the same situation for the whole book, it was like reading my journal close to payday.

Really guys, I just wanted more. I wanted guns and ships, I wanted heroics and action and scandal. But I got a marriage that was a bit squiffy and a country on the brink of discovering who it was, but not quite getting there. It just wasn’t what I thought I was signing up for, so if there’s a third book in this series, I don’t think I’ll be so bothered to pick it up. I actually had to download the audiobook of this one in the end to get through the last 150 pages or so, which made the reading experience a little better!