Stephanie Meyer Releases Gender-Swapped ‘Twilight’ For Reasons Unknown


Not content with four books, five movies, and giving Robert Pattinson and Kristin Stewart Post-Twilight Stress Disorder, Stephanie Meyer has released unto the world a fifth Twilight book, with a gender-bent cast of characters in celebration of Twilight’s 10th anniversary.

Called ‘Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined’, the book follows the story of human dude named Beau (originally Bella), who falls in love with vampire Edythe (originally Edward), and befriends future-werewolf Julie (originally Jacob).

The whole point of an entirely gender-swapped book (minus Bella / Beau’s parents) is to try and reverse Bella’s reputation of the “damsel in distress”, and is definitely not about the dollar signs blurring Meyer’s vision.

“It’s always bothered me a little bit because anyone surrounded by superheroes is going to be… in distress,” she said on Good Morning America. “We don’t have the powers. I thought, ‘What if we switched it around a bit and see how a boy does’, and, you know, it’s about the same.

“The further you get in, the more it changes because the personalities get a little bit different” (good) “but it starts out very similar, and really, it really is the same story” (why) “because it’s just a love story and it doesn’t matter who’s the boy and who’s the girl,” (spoilers) “it still works out.”

Twilight did spur a lot of girl power,” said host Amy Robach of the book which the main female character literally cannot function without a boyfriend. “I mean, it terms of gender, we saw Bella there as just such a heroine.”

Meyer reckons this will be the only book featuring Beau, but she also said this book was originally only going to be two chapters, and it ended up at 400 pages, so she’s lied to us before.

I wonder if it will change how people look at Bella a little bit, to see her as him,” she said.

“I do feel like it’s really very much the same thing, so I guess my hope is that maybe the younger readers will be reintroduced because a lot of my readers, you know, they’re all 10 years older now and so there’s a whole new generation.”

Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined‘ is supposed to go on sale today (featuring the same cover as ‘Twilight’, but a new back cover), we couldn’t find it on sale at Dymocks, Angus & Robertson, or Book Depository – although Booktopia has a ‘Twilight – Tenth Anniversary Edition‘ with “exclusive bonus content”, FYI.

Watch the interview here:

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