In celebration of the 10-year anniversary of the vampire-mortal love story that took the YA field by storm, Stephanie Meyer is releasing an all-new "Twilight" tome but with a twist that fans did not see coming at all. The author is swapping the genders of lovers Bella Swan and Edward Cullen.
The book is titled "Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined." Here, Bella Swan becomes a man named Beaufort. He likes to be called Beau, especially by Edythe, who is a reimagining of the enigmatic vampire Bella irrevocably fell in love with in the original books.
Jacob, the muscular werewolf in the bestselling four-parter "Twilight" saga, is now Julie. If the book becomes as huge as its parent series, merchandise such as t-shirts will now have fans choosing between Team Edythe and Team Julie.
"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," Meyer said during an interview with "Good Morning America."
According to CNN, Meyer's publisher initially wanted a new foreword for the books to celebrate the series' birthday. But the author said that she wanted to do something fun" and "more interesting," which lead her penning "Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined."
Meyer explained in her foreword for the special edition that she swapped the characters' gender simply to remind readers and critics that Bella is in no way a damsel in distress type of protagonist. As quoted by Entertainment Weekly, Meyer wants Bella to be seen as "human in distress.
She pointed out that Bella is simply "a normal human being surrounded on all sides by people who are basically superheroes and supervillains." Part of the change that comes with Bella becoming Beau is that the latter is "more OCD" than the former.
This is, on the other hand, apparently a reply to those who thought that Bella's world only revolved around Edward that is allegedly made to appear "as if that's somehow just a girl thing."
"Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined" is 442 pages long but it did not take the author an exhaustive amount of time to complete it. Meyer says that she patched up some grammar and word choice issues with the book too. Officially released to the market by Little, Brown & Co yesterday, the anniversary special edition title will cost $21.99.