Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined

Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined

Author	Stephenie Meyer
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Twilight series
Genre	Young adult, fantasy, romance, vampire
Publisher	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date	October 6, 2015
Media type	Print (Hardcover, Paperback) e-Book (Kindle) Audio Book (CD)
Pages	400[1] (Paperback)
ISBN	9780349002484

Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined (stylized as life and death: TWILIGHT REIMAGINED) (2015) is a young adult vampire-romance novel by author Stephenie Meyer. It is a reboot/gender flip of the first book in the Twilight series, and introduces seventeen-year-old Beaufort Swan, who moves from Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, Washington. He is endangered after falling in love with Edythe Cullen, a vampire.

Plot

Mirroring the plot of Twilight, Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined follows 17-year-old Beaufort Swan as he leaves the sunny environment of Phoenix, Arizona where he has spent most of his life with his mother, Renée Dwyer, to the gloomy town of Forks, Washington to spend the rest of his high school career with his estranged father, police chief Charlie Swan.

As Beau walks into the class, a fan blows his scent towards Edythe Cullen. Beau sits next to Edythe in biology class on his first day of school, but she seems repulsed by him, hurting his feelings in the process. She disappears for a few days, but warms up to Beau upon her return; their newfound relationship is interrupted after Beau is nearly crushed by a van in the school parking lot. Edythe saves Beau, stopping the van with only her hand.

Even though Beau never had many friends in Phoenix, he quickly attracts attention at his new school, and is quickly befriended by several students. Much to his dismay, several girls in the school compete for Beau's attention.

During a trip to La Push, Beau tricks a family friend, Julie Black of the Quileute tribe, into telling him the local tribal legends and he finds out why, although the Cullens have lived in Forks for two years, they have never really been accepted by the townsfolk. Julie mentions the Cullens, and says that most of the reservation believes that they are vampires, though she doesn't think so. During a trip to Port Angeles, Edythe rescues him again, this time from a band of gangsters intent on killing him. Beau asks her if what Julie said about her family is true. Edythe admits that she and her family are vampires, but says that she and her family only drink animal blood to keep themselves from turning into the monsters, unlike other vampires.

Edythe and Beau's relationship grows over time and they fall in love. Their foremost problem is that to Edythe, Beau's scent is a hundred times more potent than any other human's, making Edythe struggle to resist her desire to kill him. However, despite this, they manage to stay together safely for a time.

The seemingly perfect state of their relationship is thrown into chaos when another vampire coven sweeps into Forks and Joss, a sadistic tracker vampire, decides that she wants to hunt Beau for sport. Edythe's family plan to distract the tracker by splitting up Beau and Edythe, and Beau is sent to hide in a hotel in Phoenix. Beau then gets a phone call from Joss in which she says that she has his mother, and Beau is forced to give himself up to Joss at an old ballet studio near his mother's house. Upon meeting her, Beau discovers his mother wasn't at the dance studio and was safe all along. Joss attacks Beau, but Edythe, along with the rest of the Cullen family, rescue Beau before Joss can kill him. Unfortunately, the venom has spread too far into his system, and Beau becomes a vampire.

Sometime after Beau's transformation, the Quileute wolves confront the Cullens, believing they were responsible. Beau and the Cullens manage to convince the wolves to believe the truth after a brief talk with tribal elder Bonnie Black. When the wind blows Bonnie's scent to Beau, he manages to stay in control of himself, much to Edythe and Carine's surprise. With everything resolved, Beau and Edythe begin their unlimited time of "forever".

Reception

Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined received mixed reviews.

Common Sense Media gave it a 3 out of 5 and said, "This reimagined Twilight with swapped genders (Bella is Beau, Edward is Edythe) and most of the same content will primarily interest Twi-hards and anyone in a gender studies class."

The Yorker gave it a negative review, saying that the "stench of a quick money-making scheme was quite potent."

Books : A True Story gave it a 4 out of 5 stars even after calling the book "copied down" from Twilight.

References