A Swapped Story For Twilight Fans

Twilight author Stephenie Meyer shocked fans on the vampire saga’s 10th anniversary yesterday by releasing a 442-page reimagining of Twilight with a male human and a female vampire.

Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined follows human Beaufort (formerly Bella), or Beau for short, and vampire Edythe (formerly Edward). Same story, swapped genders.

Meyer told Good Morning America that she rewrote the book because she was tired of the “damsel in distress” accusations made about Bella.

“…that’s always bothered me a little bit, because anyone surrounded by superheroes is going to be in a little bit of distress. So I thought, ‘What if we switched it around a little bit and see how a boy does,’ and you know, it’s about the same.”

Meyer insists the character is a “human in distress,” and says the criticism that Bella was “too consumed with her love interest, as if that’s somehow just a girl thing” just isn’t fair because we all fall in love like that.

As far as differences in the story and characters goes, Meyers says Beau is “more OCD” than Bella was and that he’s “totally missing the chip Bella carries around on her shoulder all the time.”

One of the reasons fans are so shocked is they were expecting Midnight Sun, the story of Twilight but from Edward’s perspective. In fact, the foreword of the new book starts with “I’m So Sorry,” saying that Midnight Sun wasn’t included because there wasn’t enough time. The unofficial story though is that the manuscript has been shelved because of an online leak and we probably won’t see it in print any time soon.

We probably won’t see the saga sequels with the swapped genders either or a movie of this reimagining.

The double-feature tenth anniversary edition of Twilight, which includes Life and Death is available today in bookstores and online.