Beatriz would do anything for her cousin Hero, which is how she, a queer biracial woman, finds herself spending a week at the Cape Cod mansion of Ben Montgomery, a privileged playboy from a conservative family. To make matters even more uncomfortable, Ben is also the one she hooked up with that one time at a school party. While on the surface Ben looks to be the epitome of white privilege, he is wrestling with his family’s political views and expectations. Beatriz can’t deny the pull that exists between her and Ben but she does not want to compromise her identity and beliefs with someone who is supposed to be the enemy. However, the more time they spend with each other and realize their assumptions about each other were not necessarily accurate, they wonder if there’s a way that this could work.
Ben and Beatriz is a modern-day retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and I have to admit that I’m not that familiar with all of the bard’s works to have picked up on that. While Much Ado is a comedy, I didn’t really find anything particularly funny about this book. I was initially very intrigued by the premise of this very relevant scenario where it seems people now have never been more divided down political lines and that aspect of it was definitely evident in the story.
I appreciated the diversity and conversations that the author infused into the story, although at times it felt a bit too heavy-handed and in-your-face about it. It was great to address the differences between people and perhaps use some situations as education moments for characters and readers alike, but because of Beatriz’ personality perhaps, her “education” moments came off very preachy and judgemental. Even when, for example, one character seemingly genuinely was trying to learn what biphobia was. I totally get that it isn’t Beatriz’s responsibility to have to educate others about that and in the context of the story sure but, I thought, if a reader also didn’t know what that meant, they’d feel chastised by that kind of harsh response and also not want to ask any other questions to educate themselves in the future.
While I found the first half very slow to get going, I did think the second half picked up a bit more in pacing. I felt some characters had a bit more depth to them than others, where it quite literally seemed like their only attribute was always being drunk or high and ODing. That being said, it was an interesting story that had obvious relevance to the modern day. I did like that it potentially intends to make the reader open their minds about others and consider what they may be wrestling with despite how they look or what their family’s political beliefs are. But this is definitely more of a heavy story than a “comedy” like the Shakespeare play that it’s supposed to be a retelling of. The potential of this story was there but, for me, the execution was a bit hit or miss.
Review: ★ ★ ★ (3 /5 stars)
Available: August 2, 2022
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A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for this blog tour in exchange for an honest review
JUST A LIL LOST 