Bella, Edward ‘Twilight’ characters swap genders in Stephenie Meyer’s new rewrite

Bella, Edward ‘Twilight’ characters swap genders in Stephenie Meyer’s new rewrite

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The book, called Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined

Sparkly vampire specialist Stephenie Meyer has come up with an original way to observe the 10th anniversary of the primary novel in her Twilight saga: a 442-page rewrite that recasts moody human Bella as a moody guy named Beau and cryptic vampire Edward as a mysterious lady-vamp named Edythe. Seriously.

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Based on Meyer, the new characters’ personalities are “merely slightly distinct” from the ones on which they are based.

The novel, called Death and Life : Twilight Envisioned — the cover of will be available in hardcover and e-book kinds on Tuesday.

In the forward, Meyer writes that she was inspired to write it partly in response to critics that call the original series’ heroine, Bella Swan, a damsel in distress.

“My answer to that has always been that Bella is a ‘human in distress,’ a normal human being surrounded on all sides by people who are basically superheroes and villains,” the author explains. “She’s also been criticized for being 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.”

Then Meyer had an idea: “I thought to myself, ‘Well, what if I put that theory to the test? That might be fun.”

Meyer elaborated a bit on the new book during an appearance on Good Morning America Monday. “It really is the same story,” she told GMA’s Amy Robach. “It’s just a love story. It doesn’t matter who’s the boy and who’s the girl. It just works out.”

Just don’t expect this to be the beginning of an entire gender-swapped Twilight franchise. When asked whether she plans to write more stories about Beau and Edythe and if she thinks Life and Death will be adapted into a movie, Meyer said she doesn’t think so.

“I think this is just one version with Beau,” she said.

Somewhere, Kristen Stewart just breathed a sigh of relief.

Simply do not anticipate this to be the beginning of an entire gender-swapped Twilight franchise. When asked whether she intends to write more stories and if she thinks Life and Death will be accommodated into a film, Meyer said she does not believe so.