Is Beau better than Bella?

Life and Death is Stephenie Meyer’s reimagining of the twilight story, with a twist. All characters (almost) have switched genders. Is it a meaningful change from Twilight? Let’s discuss!

Stephenie Meyer pulled a Beyoncé. That’s right, a Beyoncé. Fans were expecting the release of the twilight 10th anniversary edition when they woke up to this.

Stephenie Meyer dropped a new twilight book out of nowhere. Well almost new, see what actually happened is that Stephenie rewrote Twilight and genderbended (almost) every character. Instead of Bella we now have Beau(fort) a precarious teenage boy who falls in love with the brooding, illustrous vampire Edythe. Shocking right? What could have changed now that Bella has become Beau? Well unfortunately not much. As Stephenie stresses in the introduction, she has always claimed that it wouldn’t matter if Bella had been a boy and Edward a girl because being deeply in love was a human thing and not just a girl thing. In a way the story feels like Meyer’s rebuttal of all the criticisms she received for Bella being a pushover who can’t do anything without her man.

I truly feel like Meyer missed a mayor opportunity here. If she was going to write what is basically a fanfiction of her own work she could have done so much. She could have veered completely of track and changed the story with different decisions, coming up with something new and surprising in the process. This was the perfect opportunity, she had nothing to prove to anyone. Now I will say that Life and Death is not completely the same as Twilight. It is not as if Meyer used the search and replace function in word to swap out Bella’s name for Beau but the storyline remains mostly the same except for a part at the end so that she could tie up this story in one book.

In the end I think we have to judge this book on what it really is. Fanservice, to the fans of twilight who were going to buy the 10th anniversary editions. To those fans Life and Death is probably a very pleasant surprise, a new way to enjoy a story that they already know and love. But it’s not anything more than that and I doubt anyone who didn’t like Twilight will be compelled to pick it up.

In the end, Life and Death is at best a new way for fans to enjoy a familiar tale and at worst a missed opportunity.