Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined

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See, this is what I mean; Meyer claims gender is a non-issue with her book, but by this choice of *not* swapping Charlie and Renee's roles, despite the fact that EVERY. OTHER. CHARACTER. has swapped roles raises more than just an eyebrow; it slaps us in the face that her non-issue argument is a load of crap, because it is VERY MUCH an issue.

Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined is a young adult vampire- romance novel by Stephenie Meyer. The story is a gender-swapped retelling of the first book in the Twilight series, and introduces Beau Swan and Edythe Cullen in place of Bella and Edward. [4] The book was originally published on October 6, 2015 as part of an "oversized flip-book pairing" with Twilight to celebrate the original novel's tenth anniversary. [5] An audiobook ( CD) was released by Penguin Random House on the same day. [6] Plot [ edit ] I wanted to give this book or whatever, the chance I felt it deserved. See, Twilight was the catalyzer of my reading life. It was Twilight who introduced me to YA and that helped me find this community. It was because of Twilight and its movies that I found a lot of things and people I love till this day so having this book released, in honor of the tenth year anniversary? It was a must read against my best judgement.

Perhaps the most interesting thing was why Meyer claims she wrote this. Take this from the introduction to the book: This may be a bad example but it's the best one I can think of to convey how it felt to read this book. Female Edward, aka Edythe (because it isn't a YA book if there isn't a name with an unnecessary Y), was nice. I liked her. She felt just like a slightly less horrible version of Edward, which she was by all means, a lot of the time. Let me start off by saying that I did love these books when I first read them. What can I say? I didn't know a lot of great books and pretty much read whatever was popular. Since then I've grown and I discovered this great community and so many amazing books. So when I re-read these old favorites of mine, I couldn't do it. I hated them. I saw everything that was wrong with these books. And I'm not saying that it's wrong for you to like these books. It's not. It's awesome if you love them. I know a lot of you started reading or discovered YA books because of these books and that is amazing! If anything, I'm happy that it got you reading and if you love these books, good for you. But I don't. And I never had a chance to review these books since I didn't really know that was a thing until I found Goodreads. Now I do and it's not going to be pretty.

Charlie is one of my favorite characters of the series. I enjoyed him a lot and I really had hope when I figured “hey, if everyone switched genders, it’ll be cool to see woman!Charlie and man!Renée” but nope. That made me so incredibly angry and her excuse for it? It wasn’t realistic. REALLY, STEPHENIE, REALLY? So you go and write and Paranormal teenager romance book, then you re-write said book but changing the genders and you couldn’t make the father have the custody because ”Here’s the reason for that: Beau was born in 1987. It was a rare thing for a father to get primary custody of a child in those days—even more so when the child was just a baby. Most likely, the mother would have had to be proven unfit in some way. I have a really hard time believing that any judge at that time (or even now) would give a child to a transient, unemployed father over a mother with a steady job and strong ties to her community.” It’s your WORLD, Stephenie. If you really wanted to make it rain blood, you could have done it. That’s just you being lazy, and I’m not sorry to say it. It’d be great to see a female Charlie being chief police and her being taciturn and not some homely just like male Charlie and what about a carefree male Renée? I mean, that could have been good but no. Ugh. sweetcatcandy Fandoms: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer, Twilight Series - All Media Types, Life and Death - Stephenie Meyer So, I reread the entirety of Twilight in preparation for this novel. I really shouldn't have. Twilight was not re-imagined... this was literally the same book. Now that you have a little Twilight history, you know that I know these aren’t the best books ever. I know the writing isn’t epic, but I also know they’re hella entertaining and have opened the doors for so many authors (I can’t even count how many favorite books of mine have started as Twilight fanfic). And most importantly, without Twilight, who knows if I would have started reading daily, joined goodreads and met all you fantastic people. Carlisle notices Beau's major crush and his attempts to get closer... without realizing he already succeeded in winning Carlisle over long ago.This is Twilight (book 1), reimagined that the youngest Cullen is not Edward but instead Edythe. All other characters remain the same and the story plays out the same way. I take no credit for writing or creativity as this heavily leans on source materials. Language: English Words: 53,745 Chapters: 11/27 Comments: 11 Kudos: 18 Bookmarks: 4 Hits: 384

To me, this ending was a fun What If story. If she could have re-imagined the whole thing, instead of just (mostly) changing pronouns, I would have been happy. Based on Meyer's comments in the foreword, beyond the obvious attempt at a cash grab (which I would assume didn't work because I've never met another person who knows this exists), Life and Death seems to have come about largely due to her having a chip on her shoulder for people coming for the sexism in Twilight and the fact that Bella is often described as a classic, boring Damsel in Distress, to which Meyer replies that Bella is simply a Human in Distress and it would be no different were she a man. I guess this book is supposed to prove that? Anyway the years of being called anti-feminist must have really gotten under her skin, because Edythe (our new Edward) at one point says - and I quote - "Try not to get caught up in antiquated gender roles," when paying for dinner for Beau. This from the same author that felt the need to change the School NURSE to a School MEDIC now that they're male. The irony is...astounding. Mirroring the plot of Twilight, Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined follows 17-year-old Beaufort Swan as he leaves the sunny environment of Phoenix, Arizona, where he has spent most of his life with his mother, Renée Dwyer, to the gloomy town of Forks, Washington, to spend the rest of his high school career with his estranged father, police chief Charlie Swan. It look me a lot longer than usual to fully lose myself in Life and Death. This was actually the fourth time I’d attempted to read it – I’d never made it past the first three chapters. I think I’ve always been too close to Bella and Edward. It’s difficult to separate them from Beau and Edythe. It’s also impossible not to draw comparisons. Especially because Beau’s inner monologue is practically identical to Bella’s. Well, at least during the first few chapters. Over the past few years, I've settled on generally disliking everything Twilight stands for while holding onto a morbid fascination and, begrudgingly, bestowing some sort of respect for a series that put YA literature on the map.

In the hands of a more skilled writer, this might have been pulled off flawlessly. I found the changes she made with Beau's narration interesting. Meyer mentioned in the Forward that Bella is more flowery with her words, where Beau is not. This is a complete understatement. The one thing Twilight actually had going for it, was the occasionally pretty quote. I say occasional, because the novel contains too many short, simple sentences than I usually like in my books. In Life and Death's case, the writing has been watered down so much that it feels on par with See Spot Run. And I don't necessarily think this is a gender thing. Just because a character is a boy, doesn't mean he can't be articulate or well-versed. It's not uncommon to discover popular YA authors' inability to write convincing male POVs. *cough*Veronica Roth*cough* And I learned from Midnight Sun, that it's not exactly Meyer's forte either, but c'mon! This was really bad, even for her.

In the afterword of Life and Death, Meyer said the new novel is not just about changing Bella’s gender to become a male. She said she wanted to see what would happen if the series had ended with the first Twilight book and if the timing of the plot had been different. This was a cool idea - instead of Edward, we have Edyth, instead of Bella, we have Beau, etc. Like before, Beau/Bella moves to town, and falls in love with a 100-year-old vampire (etc). "It would be more...prudent for you not to be my friend," she explained. "But I'm tired of trying to stay away from you, Beau."What changes is our perception of the story due to gender roles - for example Dr Cullen (now Dr Corrine Cullen) lives in Forks because her husband (Ernest/Esme) adores small-town life. Royal Hale: Edythe, Archie and Jessamine's adoptive brother and Eleanor's mate. He dislikes Beau and ignores his relationship with Edythe. Even after Beau is turned into a vampire, Royal ignores him but does not object to him joining them. Of course not. But I did have a blast reading these books with my BFF. We got all caught up in the sparkly love story and spent hours on the phone discussing the plot. It was like we were teenagers again. And the entire time we were in the thrall of our Twitard mania, we would giggle about what a couple of idiots we were to get so wrapped up in such a cheesetastic story. Ugh, the combination of all of these things, from the gender issues to the ending, just left me feeling annoyed and unsatisfied. This is not a good book by any means. This is bad fanfiction, written by the author. I'm not saying the idea couldn't or shouldn't have been done, but it should have been handled in a much, much better manner. Either just change the genders of the title characters, or rewrite the story completely with all the changes you desire. And clean-up that ending. And for the love of everything holy, STOP using sexual violence as a dramatic afterthought.Meyer said she does not have plans to write sequels to Life and Death, nor does she think it will become a film. The Twilight fans that are likely to be the most disappointed by the reimagined novel are the ones that were Team Jacob. Julie’s importance in the new gender-swapped version is very minimal in comparison to Jacob’s in the Twilight series. Plus, of course, there is no “ Renesmee” equivalent, but some fans may feel that is for the best since Jacob “imprinting” on Edward and Bella’s baby was a controversial plotline. As it is, I don't think this is worth the price tag, simply because it isn't (for the most part) a quality story. I actually had more fun on this review's thread than I did reading this painful rendition of Meyer's 'classic' novel. Stephenie Meyerjust released a surprising new novel, Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined,that swaps all of the genders in Twilight.Throughout the beginning of the new storyline she adjusts a few scenes that stray from the original book. However, in the final chapters, everything changes. ( Warning: spoilers below.) Archie Cullen: Edythe, Royal and Eleanor's adoptive brother and Jessamine's mate. He has the power to see the future and uses this to warn the other Cullens about Joss' hunt for Beau. He is very supportive of Edythe and Beau's relationship and becomes one of Beau's good friends. When Joss starts hunting Beau, Archie and Jessamine take Beau to Phoenix in Arizona and go into hiding. pommyganny Fandoms: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer, Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight (Movies), Life and Death - Stephenie Meyer