Thank you Graydon House for the privilege of reading Ben and Beatrix early!
Review:
I must preface this by declaring my incredible love for the source material–while I cannot call myself a great lover of the Bard, I am, indubitably, a great lover of Much Ado About Nothing. Benedick and Beatrice, specifically, will always, always, have my heart. There is nothing quite like falling for your greatest enemy, nothing quite like anger bleeding into lust, nothing quite like banter as the foundation of a relationship.

As a huge fan of Shakespeare’s original play, I cannot recommend this book enough. Gamarra takes Shakespeare’s comedy and colors in with a real world context, adding depth to the characters and fleshing out the circumstances of their inciting hatred for each other to fit our modern world. In Ben and Beatrix, Ben is a douchey privileged white boy (or so Beatrix believes) and Beatrix is a rude, raging socialist Latina (or so Ben says), and they are thrown together not in an Italian villa but at Ben’s family’s mansion for spring break. Surrounding them and their simmering sexual tension are the expected cast of characters, all given a real world twist and real world traumas. In particular, I enjoyed Hero, Beatrix’s white-passing cousin, given more of a backbone than in the original play. Gamarra adds social commentary and difficult conversations to her novel, which lend the central conflict of Ben and Beatrix’s prejudices a more realistic, poignant meaning. She also failed to fall for the romance genre’s trap of an idealized, perfect ending–our prejudiced world does not always afford a perfect ending, but does allow for happy ones.

Of course, as enjoyable as the novel was, it was not perfect. Gamarra sticks (and I hope this is not a spoiler) relatively close to the play’s original plot, but fails to properly pace the relationship’s development accordingly, so that the first half reads much stronger than the second, even though the central conflict is not introduced until startlingly late. She also touches on an incredibly broad range of subjects–colorism, racism, queerphobia, biphobia, anxiety and substance abuse are some that come first to mind–and while each conversation is handled with care, there is simply not enough pages in the book to merit each the discussion I felt it could have benefitted from. The complex trauma each character carried also moved the novel farther towards drama than the original’s comedic tone–a feature that initially annoyed me as I clung to my source material but ultimately came to appreciate. All of these are not deal breakers, and did little to diminish my enjoyment of the book. I’d be interested to see the author’s improvement, as I do believe this is her debut novel.

However, I must close by singing this novel’s praises, for I got to see Benedick and Beatrice fall in love again, albeit reincarnated in a different form. The banter was top notch, the tension was top notch, and the eventual surrender to the fact that they *gasp* do actually love each other was oh so satisfying. They bonded over a love of Austen and a hatred for the Beats, and I melted for them, completely. While it was not perfect, it was good, and I will be preordering Gamarra’s next novel post-haste.

This title was exactly what I was expecting in all the right ways. Steamy, sweet, and as the TikTokers say perfectly spicy. It was a wonderful retelling with a great enemies to lovers transition. I would recommend it to romance readers, especially fans of New Adult Romance.

Thank you, Graydon House, for allowing me to read Ben and Beatriz ​early!

2022 is really the year of the Shakespearean retellings it seems and these debut authors really did their homework. Ben & Beatriz is the thrilling and captivating reimagining of Much Ado About Nothing and I loved it. A love story both electric and exhilaratingly ecstatic. Not quite a reach across the aisle romance (luckily, because I'm not keen on those), Ben & Beatriz is a wonderful book exploring the themes of racism, white privilege and queerness. Definitely a worthy reading experience.