There’s Edward and Bella, and then there’s Beau and Edythe.
Both pairs are the vampire-human lovers, except the latter is gender-swapped version of the former.
That’s right, Twihards. This is not a fan fiction.
In honour of the 10th anniversary of her best-selling vampire romance novels, “Twilight” author Stephenie Meyer has penned a new Twilight book about a female vampire falling in love with a human boy.
Titled “Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined”, the new Twilight book is a 442-page retelling of the original story. Almost every character has been gender-swapped, except Bella/Beau’s parents Charlie and Renee.
Bella is now a human teenage boy named Beau (shorrt for Beaufort) and Edward is now a vampire girl named Edythe. Werewolf boy Jacob is now a female werewolf named Julie.
Meyer first announced plans to release a “Twilight” 10th anniversary special edition with bonus content during the “Forever Twilight in Forks” festival in Washington last month.
In a foreword the story, Meyer begins by apologising to her ardent fans for not being able to release “Midnight Sun”, the retelling of “Twilight” from Edward’s perspective, due to lack of time. The manusciprt has apparently been shelved for years after an online leak.
Meyer then explained in her foreword that she decided to gender-switched the characters to prove the point that Bella isn’t a “damsel in distress”, as certain critics have claimed.
She insisted that the character is a “human in distress”, describing her as “a normal human being surrounded on all sides by people who are basically superheroes and supervillains”. She also disagreed with the criticism that Bella was “too consumed with her love interest, as if that’s somehow just a girl thing”.
“I’ve always maintained that it would have made no difference if the human were male and vampire female — it’s still the same story,” she added.
Though the love story remains the same, Meyer revealed that there are slight personality changes to the characters. Beau is apparently “more OCD” and “not as angry” than Bella was. The author also mentioned that Beau is “totally missing the chip Bella carries around on her shoulder all the time”.
During an appearance on “Good Morning America”, Meyer spoke of the similarities.
Meyer said:
The further you get in, the more it changes because the personalities get a little bit different, but it starts out very similar and really, it really is the same story because it’s just a love story and it doesn’t matter who’s the boy and who’s the girl, it still works out.
Meyer further stated in her foreword that the rewrite was “fun, but also really fast and easy”. Not only did it allow her to correct some errors that always bothered her, it also allowed her to re-edit the piece for grammar and word choice issues.
Some elements of the mythology were altered for consistency too.
The new “Twilight” book is currently available for purchase in hardcover and e-book. However, don’t expect to see a film version of the book featuring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson again because Meyer mentioned on GMA that she doesn’t think it will be turned into a movie, like she did with the original Twilight series.
She said:
I think that this is just one version with Beau.
“I don’t really see (a movie) happening and a lot of the people I’d put in it would be like Grace Kelly so it’s a little too late for some of my first choices,” she added.
Would you read the new “Twilight” book? Which team would you belong to, “Team Edythe” or “Team Julie”? Share your thoughts in the comments box below.
