By Jovanna Brinck
Courier Staff Reporter/Columnist
Last week Stephanie Meyer pulled a Beyonce and released a book without any publicity about it. This book was released for the tenth anniversary of Twilight. While fans were waiting for a retelling of the story, from Edward’s perspective, they got something a little different. Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined is the the story of Twilight but with switched character genders.
In this book, Beau Swan meets drop-dead gorgeous vampire, Edythe Cullen, and ultimately falls in love with her. This book mostly follows the same plot as the original novel and has the same characters, just as their opposite genders.
In her foreword, Meyer explained that she wanted not only to give a different perspective to fans of the book, but also show critics of the book that Bella is not a damsel in distress and can easily be portrayed as a guy.
At the beginning, I found myself still imagining the characters as their original genders. I don’t know if this is because I am so used to the original, or if the characters’ words and actions fit best to the genders they were originally assigned. I think Stephanie Meyer should have changed a little more of the characters’ thoughts so that it fit better to their new gender.
Meyer also mentioned in her foreword that while writing this book she got to review her original work and make it better. I enjoyed the little parts that were different; it was probably my favorite aspect of the book.
Comparing this book to the original, it is better in some ways and worse in others. I do respect the fact that Meyer took time to change things that she didn’t like in the story. However, reading a book that has the exact same plot line and character personalities as another is boring and repetitive.
It is not a secret that Twilight isn’t for everyone. Personally, it wasn’t my favorite when I read it about seven years ago, but I decided to give this new book a try as I am all for gender equality. The first Twilight made Bella seem shy and submissive, and I hoped it wouldn’t seem this way as much in the new book. Although, I do respect Meyer’s attempt to fix the problems people have with the story, it was not executed well enough for me. Beau/Bella is an annoyingly dependent character, no matter the gender.
I would say that if you were a fan of the original Twilight series, you will definitely enjoy this book and diving into the Twilight world once more. If you didn’t like Twilight, but keep an open mind, I would also recommend this book to you. However, if you have never liked Twilight, and will never change your mind, you will not like how similar this book is to the original. It is better for the latter group of people to not pick up this book.
