I read the first of the three in this series several years ago. I was happy to reacquaint myself with Alex and Eliza, and the birth of our nation. Knowing that the novel is historical fiction, and part of the young-adult genre, the storyline was rather passive. I enjoyed the imagined conversations, the dash of history. However, I was disappointed in Cruz’s choice to leave out the fact that Alex and Eliza started having children soon after they were married. Cruz had no problem sharing the birth of Eliza’s youngest sister in her novel. I get that she wanted to keep the romance of their early years together “honeymoon like.” And I totally understand artistic license when it comes to storytelling...just not sure that reimagining history to fit the narrative she wanted to tell was the way to go. Will the young-adult audience dig into Alex and Eliza’s history to find the real story, or will they accept Cruz’s rendition as historical fact? Perhaps, it is that I’m reading this in 2021, and not say, 2018 - and the “climate” in which we live is very different when it comes to how we look at our American history.
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