Reddit reviews The Hamilton Affair: A Novel

The short version: it's horribly written. The author tried to make Eliza the sort of heroine a 13-year-old girl discovering feminism would love, and I appreciate the effort, but oof, it ended up being an insult to 13-year-old girls. She behaves in ways that would never fly in that period, acts like a bitch for no reason, and apparently is the black sheep of the Schuyler family. It has little basis in history, and both she and Alexander have none of their historical counterparts' personality traits. The author wrote a bad book cashing off of the musical's success and fangirls' crushes on musical-Hamilton. It's lazy "young adult" fiction. (Just the fact that the author stops right after they get married, before anything difficult in their personal relationship happens, should show you how lazy and fanciful it is.)

If you're gonna read fluffy trash, try The Hamilton Affair. It's not a very complex or insightful take on their relationship, either, and it's definitely another piece of fluff; I gave it a 2 out of 5. But the writing style isn't total garbage, there's some attention to historical detail, and the author at least attempted to model the fictional versions on the actual people re: personality. If you want some novels about the Revolutionary War that aren't focused on Hamilton and Eliza, there are dozens of great ones, too, with the detail and complexity deserved.

ETA: To be clear, I have no issue with young adult fiction. But most of my students are 16-20 years old, and they are not stupid. It's frustrating when books like this treat young people like they're dumb and put in zero effort. Trust me, they can handle more nuanced characters and intricate plots! It was a fascinating time period and these are interesting people; why not use that to your advantage instead of writing a book that bears little resemblance to history beyond the characters' names?