Who Tells Your Story?: History, Pop Culture, and Hidden Meanings in the Musical Phenomenon Hamilton by Valerie Estelle Frankel

Who Tells Your Story?: History, Pop Culture, and Hidden Meanings in the Musical Phenomenon Hamilton Reviews

• 
  Emily Ross

  I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
  
  This was a good book. It goes very in detail regarding the song details, who they were influenced by and the decisions behind the choices and the colour clothes the characters are wearing at certain points and who gives it to them.
  
  There were some points that felt quite stretched though.
  
  I did love the Bullet though.
• 
  Kimberly

  My entire family are obsessed HamilFans, so we read this together. There were a few new and interesting nuggets of information discussed, we especially liked the insights into set and costume design and the subtleties that were examined. Also, a favorite was the inclusion of cut songs and exploration of why they were removed from the finished piece. It was interesting to learn about musical influences and how the music evolved based on the individual characteristics of the performers. I don't know if all shows evolve in this way. I used to think that writers and composers would create a show and then their finished project would be cast and performed after the fact, but this show was created and reformed based on the individuals who were cast in their roles and brought their interpretations and musical finesse that culminated in pieces being edited or changed. We love the show and can't get enough of it, this book was a nice little peek behind the scenes for us.
• 
  Roy

  A very good, readable, short take on the background and context of the musical Hamilton. For the reader who wants a quick preparation before seeing the musical, or a quick answer to questions like "How close is this to history?" and "How does this musical fit into the history of music and art in America?", Frankel provides an overview in 150 pages. I think she does best in providing a perspective on the work as theater, but she also addresses the key historical questions. The book provides one of the best bibliographies on the musical available. While most of the points she makes are covered in Hamilton: The Revolution, she does provide some unique insights that I found no where else.
  
  Frankel mainly writes about popular culture from a feminist perspective (e.g. The Girl's Guide to the Heroine's Journey and Empowered: The Symbolism, Feminism, and Superheroism of Wonder Woman), with a focus on illuminating the literary and historical allusions, and the Jungian foundations, in popular media works. Who Tells Your Story? fits in that pattern, but I think it may be the only time she's written about a stage production. This approach works well fro Hamilton, which is full of allusions to the history of American music, the American musical theater, America itself, and the life of Lin-Manueal Miranda. Her writing is very readable, quick and rapid-fire like the musical itself. And the book will definitely improve your scores on the daily Hamilton Trivia quiz on the Hamilton App.
  
  The scene-by-scene analysis (the first half of the book) is best at providing quick answers to "Did that really happen?" and "Why did the lights change between those scenes?" But I think the second half of the book, focused on the relationship of the musical to current events and trends is the stronger part, and the most original. In about a third of the book, she quickly addresses the creative team, the historical trends in American musicals, the history of Hip-hop (I really had no understanding of most of that), and the musical's attempt to re-write our way out of racism and sexism without twisting history too much. Again, much of that was in Hamilton: the Revolution, but Frankel has done it compactly, and in a more focussed manner.
  
  If you want to dive into the history, this is probably not the book for you. I'd recommend Ellis' Founding Brothers. But if you care more about the work as art, this is a very good start, and has a good bibliography to start further research. And, of course, it would be hard to find a better quick read to put the play you spent so much to see into context.
• 
  Ruth Stevens

  Being a huge Hamilton fan, I feel compelled to read anything about it. This little book is okay--I found out a handful of things I didn't know before. I appreciate the admiration that the author has for Hamilton and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Some of her analyses seemed a bit of a stretch, however, and the lack of editing/proofreading was a little hard to take ("Lorens" instead of "Laurens"?--really?). It's better to just read "Hamilton: The Revolution" by Miranda and McCarter.
• 
  Nancy Franklin

  For the Hamilton obsessed.
  
  I heard the Hamilton cast album long before I was fortunate enough to see the play. Seeing the show clarified some of the scenes for me. This book further clarifies. The author looks at each scene and character in detail as it relates to the costuming, movements, lines and relation to popular culture. It has caused me to listen to the soundtrack again, looking for some of the references.
• 
  Emilie

  From what I gather, the author of this book is a literature professor, and as far as I could tell had a good grasp of the literary and historical references in the show. She went deeply into the musical theatre references, too. Dr. Frankel also listed and explained rap music references that were lost on me, but wouldn't be lost on my brother and a number of his friends. (The middle-aged and senior citizen Black women I could talk about music with are very religious and mostly or totally listen to gospel or praise music.)
  
  When I get the chance to really watch and listen to the streaming video of "Hamilton," I'm sure I'll get much of the African-American Vernacular English that some characters use. My mother worked at an HBCU (Historically Black College or University) for some years. I'd expect she has a decent idea about the wording and speech patterns of AAVE. The older Black women she's friends with are not really into rap or hip hop, so they wouldn't be able to explain who's who in rap music like my brother could. There's a generation gap there, and different tastes in music to go with the generation gap.
  
  Mom watched the show up close while I was a distance away with my reading glasses on. I listened to a good bit of the show, though. I was surprised to see some typos and wrong homonyms in the book. "Their's" was pretty bad. I thought "canon" for "cannon" was an understandable mistake from a literature professor, but rather glaring when the discussion on that page concerned artillery. Nevertheless, the book had a lot of information. I wouldn't have known where to start on looking up some of those rap and hip hop references, and I missed some of the musical theatre references, too. I would have recognized the great majority of the literary and historical references, but I'm sure those parts of the book could be very informative to other readers who are coming from different directions of the various knowledge bases that the show pulls on.
• 
  Nemo

  I thought this book was interesting in its concept. I liked how it explains things that you may not notice watching the show or listening to the soundtrack. However, I did feel like often it was just restating things that were already being said in interviews just in new words (often while quoting the original interview as well). I also found that the last section (which was about the musical as a whole, its effects on people and how it changed the world) was a little bit redundant as most of it is already known or can easily be found out by reading interviews with Lin-Manuel Maranda and the other key people in the show. Overall I felt that this book is good for people who just want a little bit of background knowledge on the musical but for committed fans, it is probably better to read the source material for the quotes (interviews and Hamilton: The Revolution) to get a more direct and unfiltered account of what is being told to you in this book. Having said all of this, I would read other books by this author, but only on topics, I know less about.
• 
  April Helms

  Rather meh about this one. This book covers the Broadway hit Hamilton, my favorite musical of all time. It includes a lot of the interviews from various sources, television specials and more. But its 90 percent interviews, little author opinion and interpretation, which is what I've been expecting. If you've seen the PBS special, read the Hamiltome, read Chernow's biography, and seen the interviews with the actors, you will get little new from this. Parts of the book were a bit confusing, and it needed one more time with an editor. For example, in one paragraph the author is talking about how Angelica is berating Hamilton for his affair (late in Act II), the next paragraph is about how Eliza is comforting him (in Act I). I caught at least one error, and a couple other things that seemed suspect but I can't verify. I did like the last 20 pages or so, when the talk was about details on the hip-hop influences, much of that I did not know.
• 
  Diane

  Thorough Discussion
  
  Frankel has drawn together information about the historical Hamilton, Miranda's process of creating Hamilton, the cultural impact of the musical, and a discussion of the literary tropes of the production into a single book. It helps the person who sees the musical once a chance to realize the deeper significance of the language, the choreography, the costumes, and stage design. The book also provides many of the significant musical influences and allusions. By musical, I mean both music, such as references to rap music as well as references to Broadway musicals and how Hamilton fits into the history of each. There is an impressive bibliography and references are included throughout showing the research Frankel did.
• 
  Mme Forte

  Meh. If you're already a "Hamilton" fan, you've read many of the sources the author cites. It was nice to get some insight into the staging/costumes/etc., as I've not yet seen the production, but other than that it was redundant for me.
  Still might have gone 4 stars (it's "Hamilton", after all) but for the lousy editing, proofing, whatever. I mean, if you're spelling character names wrong, we have a problem. That's just insulting.
• 
  Bryan

  A simple read, this is the book to pick-up if you’ve read the official Miranda book detailing the musical but still want more tidbits. For an unofficial work, it effectively fills-in where the heftier official one leaves things out. Quite enjoyable, with a handy bibliography of various multimedia sources that I will surely reference in the future.
• 
  Anastasia Wilson

  I wasn't a huge fan of the formatting in this book and it's essentially just a bunch of quotes from other sources. I expected a unique interpretation with opinion sources but it's mainly an amalgamation of other people's words.
  If you've watched any interview with the OBC, give this one a miss, you learn nothing new
• 
  Carina

  This is an enjoyable read for a Hamilton fan.
  
  Not as personal as Hamilton The Revolution, and honestly filled with grammar and layout issues, this book pulls from a variety of sources to add to your understanding of the show.
  
  I'd advise to read this in sections, too much at once and it does get a tad boring. But a good read and a book I'd return to in the future.
• 
  Christine

  Not throwing away my shot
  
  Another terrific look at the great American musical Hamilton. Some terrific insight into the songs and casting of the show as well as the impact it has had on theater goers. Keeping my Hamilton obsession fueled
• 
  amy nadine bower

  some interesting analysis
• 
  Kate TerHaar

  Very useful and informative. Loved the explanation of the staging, lighting and choreography....now I just have to see the play again
• 
  Carolyn Gentry

  An excellent companion to the musical Hamilton.