Meet You in the Middle by Devon Daniels
There's just one thing standing between liberal Senate staffer Kate Adams and passage of the landmark legislation she's been fighting for all year: Ben Mackenzie, intimidating gatekeeper for one of DC's most powerful conservative senators. After Kate and Ben lock horns in a meet-not-so-cute, they vow to take each other down--by any means necessary.
She thinks he's arrogant (and doesn't deserve those gorgeous green eyes). He thinks she's too quick to judge (and irresistibly distracting). But as their endless game of one-upmanship becomes Kate's favorite part of the day, she starts to wonder if her feelings for Ben are closer to attraction than animosity...and maybe their sparring is flirting. And when Kate realizes there's more to Ben than meets the eye, she's forced her to confront her biggest fear: In her sworn enemy, she may have found her perfect match.
I thought that this would be a book that tackled the divisions of partisanship; a story that pointed out that you can’t know everything about someone by their party affiliation. I thought it might be a book where a stubborn man changes his ways after having his eyes opened by a passionate woman and her experiences.
Instead, I got: “ideological differences are okay in a relationship as long as you have similar personalities.” I could have sworn opposites attract meant extroverts and introverts, or Marvel fans and DC fans, not having different ideas on gun control. But go off, I guess.
What we get is: “Kate, you can’t hate me just because I’m a Republican! Look at how nice I am!” And it’s true. Ben is painted as a literal saint. He is good at math, good at dancing, good at his job, kind, honorable, and funny. Ben is also insanely overprotective in a way that I couldn’t decide was romantic or creepy; then I realized the fact that I had to ask that question gave me a very clear answer. I feel like the only reason Ben got away with any of this was because he was good-looking.
Of course, it’s not reasonable to hate someone just based on their party affiliation. But the party that you’re affiliated with says a lot about your values. If Ben truly doesn’t fit the mold of a Republican, we need to see exactly how he doesn’t. For a book based on political differences, Kate and Ben never actually discuss any politics. We do not actually get to hear Ben’s perspective on anything except tax reform, on which we are just supposed to trust him because he’s “good at math.” He believes in gun freedom because he … used guns to vent out his anger after his sister was attacked. Yes, you read that right.
This idea, that political differences are minor, stings badly. Even if politics is not your whole life, it is very difficult to build a meaningful relationship with someone who cannot match your core values. And for people who are actively working to change policy? It definitely seems like a deal breaker. This isn’t to say that they need to agree on everything, but the end goal should be the same, even if the proposed solutions are different.
To Ben, this is “just a job.” He thinks he can make this relationship work because their differences are mainly based in work. But politics is not just a job. His policies on tax reform and child care affect so many people’s lives. Anyone that has been in public school in the last ten years knows how important gun control is. I’ve felt it, every time I’ve had to cower under a desk for a code red drill. I’ve felt it, every time a school shooting came up on the news: that could have been us. Anyone who is trying to build a life in the next fifty years knows how drastic climate change is. I’ve felt it, every year when half of California catches on fire and the smoke is so thick you can’t breathe. Having differences on these topics is irreconcilable. It is not just “different ways of solving the same problem.” It’s an issue of values.
Kate is fiery and passionate, while politics is just a job to Ben. He thinks that Kate is close-minded because she refuses to fraternize with the opposition. In reality, these issues are very important to her, and she doesn’t want to spend time with people who think otherwise. Honestly, this seems absolutely reasonable. The only way that this book could have worked is if Ben turned out to match her views or changed his mind. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t. She just gets won over by his “godly green eyes.”
This doesn’t sit right with me. The idea of a strong, independent, hardworking woman deciding that she can compromise with someone who doesn’t believe in the very ideas that she’s built her entire life on is … appalling. Kate is also,, kind of annoying. She is so unclear about her own life, so unnecessarily rude to Ben, and so nasty to other women. Basically, it plays out like a damsel in distress story, and Ben swoops in to save her, despite her protests that she doesn’t need to be saved. I can’t get behind it, though, because it kind of feels like Kate was right in the beginning. Ben is an unrealistic character, and it feels like Kate’s inherent flaws are over exaggerated in order to undermine the moral high ground of liberals.
Kate and Ben, on their own, make a passable love story. But the political angle makes this a hard no.
She thinks he's arrogant (and doesn't deserve those gorgeous green eyes). He thinks she's too quick to judge (and irresistibly distracting). But as their endless game of one-upmanship becomes Kate's favorite part of the day, she starts to wonder if her feelings for Ben are closer to attraction than animosity...and maybe their sparring is flirting. And when Kate realizes there's more to Ben than meets the eye, she's forced her to confront her biggest fear: In her sworn enemy, she may have found her perfect match.
Instead, I got: “ideological differences are okay in a relationship as long as you have similar personalities.” I could have sworn opposites attract meant extroverts and introverts, or Marvel fans and DC fans, not having different ideas on gun control. But go off, I guess.
What we get is: “Kate, you can’t hate me just because I’m a Republican! Look at how nice I am!” And it’s true. Ben is painted as a literal saint. He is good at math, good at dancing, good at his job, kind, honorable, and funny. Ben is also insanely overprotective in a way that I couldn’t decide was romantic or creepy; then I realized the fact that I had to ask that question gave me a very clear answer. I feel like the only reason Ben got away with any of this was because he was good-looking.
Of course, it’s not reasonable to hate someone just based on their party affiliation. But the party that you’re affiliated with says a lot about your values. If Ben truly doesn’t fit the mold of a Republican, we need to see exactly how he doesn’t. For a book based on political differences, Kate and Ben never actually discuss any politics. We do not actually get to hear Ben’s perspective on anything except tax reform, on which we are just supposed to trust him because he’s “good at math.” He believes in gun freedom because he … used guns to vent out his anger after his sister was attacked. Yes, you read that right.
This idea, that political differences are minor, stings badly. Even if politics is not your whole life, it is very difficult to build a meaningful relationship with someone who cannot match your core values. And for people who are actively working to change policy? It definitely seems like a deal breaker. This isn’t to say that they need to agree on everything, but the end goal should be the same, even if the proposed solutions are different.
To Ben, this is “just a job.” He thinks he can make this relationship work because their differences are mainly based in work. But politics is not just a job. His policies on tax reform and child care affect so many people’s lives. Anyone that has been in public school in the last ten years knows how important gun control is. I’ve felt it, every time I’ve had to cower under a desk for a code red drill. I’ve felt it, every time a school shooting came up on the news: that could have been us. Anyone who is trying to build a life in the next fifty years knows how drastic climate change is. I’ve felt it, every year when half of California catches on fire and the smoke is so thick you can’t breathe. Having differences on these topics is irreconcilable. It is not just “different ways of solving the same problem.” It’s an issue of values.
Kate is fiery and passionate, while politics is just a job to Ben. He thinks that Kate is close-minded because she refuses to fraternize with the opposition. In reality, these issues are very important to her, and she doesn’t want to spend time with people who think otherwise. Honestly, this seems absolutely reasonable. The only way that this book could have worked is if Ben turned out to match her views or changed his mind. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t. She just gets won over by his “godly green eyes.”
This doesn’t sit right with me. The idea of a strong, independent, hardworking woman deciding that she can compromise with someone who doesn’t believe in the very ideas that she’s built her entire life on is … appalling. Kate is also,, kind of annoying. She is so unclear about her own life, so unnecessarily rude to Ben, and so nasty to other women. Basically, it plays out like a damsel in distress story, and Ben swoops in to save her, despite her protests that she doesn’t need to be saved. I can’t get behind it, though, because it kind of feels like Kate was right in the beginning. Ben is an unrealistic character, and it feels like Kate’s inherent flaws are over exaggerated in order to undermine the moral high ground of liberals.
Kate and Ben, on their own, make a passable love story. But the political angle makes this a hard no.
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