Ben and Beatriz
Ratings2
Average rating4
There’s nothing like falling for your worst enemy. Beatriz Herrera is a fierce woman who will take you down with her quick wit and keen intellect. And after the results of the 2016 election worked hard to erase her identity as a queer biracial woman, she’d be right to. Especially if you come for her sweet BFF cousin, Hero. Beatriz would do anything for her, a loyalty that lands Beatriz precisely where she doesn’t want to be: spending a week at the ridiculous Cape Cod mansion of stupid-hot playboy Ben Montgomery. The same Ben Montgomery she definitely shouldn’t have hooked up with that one time… The things we do for family. White and wealthy, Ben talks the talk and walks the walk of privilege, but deep down, he’s wrestling with the politics and expectations of a conservative family he can’t relate to. Though Beatriz’s caustic tongue drives him wild in the very best way, he's the last person she'd want, because she has zero interest in compromising her identity. But as her and Ben’s assumptions begin to unravel and their hookups turn into something real, they start wondering if it’s still possible to hold space for one another and the inescapable love that unites them. This retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is both razor-sharp and swoon-worthy: the perfect love story for our time.
Reviews
Popular Reviews
Reviews with the most likes.
Much Ado About Nothing is my favorite Shakespeare play, although I don't remember there being quite as much hate-fcking in the original as there is in Ben and Beatriz, which updates the setting to Cape Cod, post-Trump but pre-COVID, and the MCs to Harvard seniors. The titular characters are forced into close proximity when Ben's BFF Claudio and Beatriz's cousin Hero decide to spend Spring Break together at Ben's family's beach house. Beatriz hates Ben because he's a rich, white fckboy who is being groomed to be the heir to his father's financial empire. And because once, in a drunken haze three years ago, she slept with him and he ghosted her. Ben doesn't hate Beatriz as much as he is annoyed by her social justice warrior attitude towards absolutely everything he does or says or represents. If only she knew how much he still thinks about the night they had sex, or the fact that he loves reading Jane Austen novels.
During the aforementioned hate fcking, Ben and Beatriz slowly open up to each other, despite a lot of poor communication and Big Misunderstandings. Until the Claudio/Hero dynamic plays out much like in the original, and disaster ensues. My enjoyment of the book was hindered by the fact I didn't really like either of the MCs. Ben *is a rich douchebag for much of the story, and although his toxic masculinity is radically reduced, he still engages in a lot of problematic behavior when shit goes down about Hero. And he pretty much ignores his alleged best friend Meg, when it is obvious that she is not okay emotionally or mentally.
Beatriz is sanctimonious and judgmental; she's a Latinx with dark skin who bristles at every microaggression Ben or his friends make and is prone to long, preachy speeches. It's true that there's not much room to compromise for a progressive woman in a relationship with the son of rabid Trump supporters, and Ben obviously needed to be enlightened about the evils of late-stage capitalism. But I want to see both MCs on a journey towards something, and it feels like Ben is the only one moving while Beatriz stands still.
The love story may not be convincing, but modernizing the story does give Hero a chance for a much more satisfying resolution than Shakespeare ever did. From the Author's Note, I learned that Catherine Tate and David Tennant starred in a British production of the play that apparently surpasses the 1993 Kenneth Branagh/Emma Thompson and the 2012 Joss Whedon movies. So I thank the author for pointing me towards a previously unknown version of one of the Bard's best.
