bella ed edward al contrario ( )

I'm slightly peeved this will count as one and not two for my Goodreads challenge, but it makes sense- they're bound together. Buddyread Life and Death with GRless!Alexandra, and since Goodreads counts all the pages and it's been a while, I figured I'd reread Twilight.

Back when the series debut, I was definitely on the hatefan train- my young adult internet experiences were lurking in those livejournal communities (which dates me, aaah), especially Cleolinda's recaps. . I always like backing up assertions with evidence, though, so I borrowed my college roommate's copies and tore through the series over Fall Break. The characters were easy to hate- Bella's constant negativity and passiveness, Edward's possessiveness would be bad traits in real life.

And yet- as I reread, I recall that I was a pessimistic teenager who figured out would-be career paths by what I didn't like, thriving on snark, and getting sniffy over popular things... like Twilight. Maybe the reason I dislike Bella is that really, actually, Bella is me (and every other ladyteen at some point).

I'm still not convinced Twilight is a Great Work, though- after the meadow sequence, Edward and Bella are so into each other I think I screamed into an update "JUST BONE ALREADY" even though I know it won't happen for another few books because she's breakable.

And on that note, that's one of several things Life and Death fixed, as Beau and Edythe have a straightforward conversation about how she could crush his skull accidentally. Besides being a genderswap, Meyer took the time to do a fresh round of edits because after a decade, you know what mistakes/repetitive phrasing/etc. appeared in your first work. It's not a complete find-and-replace- Charlie and Renee are the same because Meyer thought in the time period, there's no way the courts would give custody to a flightly man vs. the very stable Charlie, and some minor characters aren't swapped (I am not well-versed in Twilore to pick out who they were).

Due to the nature of the flip-and-read-the-other-story binding, there were a couple times in L&D where I looked to see what the original passages said. In a lot of cases, Beau is a little more thoughtful, with longer explanations for why he thinks about his classmates in a certain way, or about Forks. Beau has less of a chip on his shoulder, definitely. I also like Edythe more- while she still watches Beau sleep, she feels less stalky, and more concerned in general with the longterm status of their relationship. I'm not totally convinced the Port Angeles events are a solid genderswap counterpart (instead of girls looking for prom dresses, it's guys getting corsages and... seeing a movie? Instead of attempted sexual assault, the PA gang things Beau is an undercover cop? what), and disappointingly, Beau didn't take ballet lessons (instead, it's that his mom taught at the studio). There definitely could've been more interesting directions to go with this spear version of Bella.

Without spoiling, it'd be impossible for Meyer to continue doing genderswapped versions of the other books, as L&D ends differently. It feels a little more tragic to me, and also has consequences for AU!world.

1.5 stars, but I don't wanna round up to Goodreads' "it was ok" 2. I may understand your sparkly vampire romance novels a little better, but they're still... not... good. ( )

I've read the whole "Twilight" series so I was curious to see where this was going. I knew it was just a genderbent version of book 1, but it's been 10 years, so maybe something's changed and I'd LOVE to see a kickass female version of Jacob and the potential for a heterosexual male protagonist who admits that guys are really attractive (given Bella's frequent reminders that vampires are ALL supermodels). Even Meyer's foreward is promising: she talks about things in the manuscript she's wanted to change for years that she finally gets a chance to go back to. Grammar, typos, weird dialogue, WTF scenes and so on. Clearly she knew there were a lot of issues in the manuscript, like every good author, and is gonna take the opportunity to go back and do some fixes!

Despite that, my hopes were not exceedingly high. But perhaps they were still TOO high. You'll have to forgive me that when I'm promised that someone is going to go through an old manuscript and edit for typos and grammar mistakes and other writing screw-ups that I expect... more. Particularly a published author with more books under their belt after a decade of experience. Because as far as I can tell, nothing has changed other than replacing Bella's name with Beau and using male pronouns for the protagonist rather than female ones (and the genderbending of the other characters, I guess). The prose is still awful. The scenes are poorly written. The character development is laughable. The added male chauvinism (cause of course genderbending your female protagonist to a guy obviously needs some of that) was repulsive and, of course, from reading ahead, Beau insists on "helping" his vampire girlfriend, like the chivalrous young man he is. And of course, 'no homo' levels are high, although I'm amused that to at least some extent Beau is willing to admit that men can be attractive. Just not in THAT way. You know??? -insert mass eye-rolling- I mean it was a vague hope, but I know Meyer wouldn't pull that off.

I'd write something about the potential for CharliexCarlisle fanfiction, given Charlie's switch from Esme to the now female Carlisle (or did he fancy Alice? I forget), but it probably already existed before this. That's about the only interesting thing, here, and I started with that to point out the truly boring nature of this book that only the relatively absurd comes to mind to pass the time. I enjoy the idea of a female dominated group of First Nation warriors, a more powerful woman who is protective of her wannabe boyfriend and how the story is wrapped up relatively quickly in the end rather than female-Edward dragging things out for three more books like he does in the regular series because he's incredibly asinine. But the writing isn't worth it. I could deal with this in high school, when I knew it was terrible but hadn't read too much actually decent writing and didn't possess much of my ability to critically analyze writing. Post-college doesn't work, though. The writing isn't even passable to allow for a decent story idea to work its way into your heart.

If you've read "Twilight" and you like it, well, this is an opportunity to reread book 1. Maybe you'll spot those typos and things Meyer "fixed". If you haven't read the books, this really isn't worth it. If you want a lesbian vampire romance, go read Sheridan le Fanu's "Carmilla". If you want a gay vampire romance, go read the webcomic "Transfusions". If you want a funny story about vampires and werewolves, watch "What We Do In the Shadows". ( )

I can honestly say I think I like this version of the story better! I mean you cut out the dragged on love triangle horribleness of Eclipse and New Moon and cut out the baby and non war from Breaking Dawn, but you still have the same results. I enjoyed reading it from a role reversal! ( )

Let me start with a caveat. I was vaguely curious about whether Stephenie would manage to pull off the task she said she set out to pull of with this book. To prove that she could swap the gender of her characters and still tell the same story, with the same gender roles she was so flamed for and how it would be the same. A new story rehashing the old. An author writing her own AU mash-up. As a previous reader, a teacher, and a fanfiction rerader/writer I had to admit I was a little awed by the idea and in that a tiny seedling of hope sprouted.

Only to be horrendously crashed by this book. I should just copy-paste all of my twitter/facebook comments while reading it. It was terrible, and basically felt like she control find-edited the names and then just tried to touch up certain seconds, but without actually doing anything else. Plus, she left the truly terrible faux paus in Alice's powers, even though she actually changed the entire end of the book. Yeah. Don't even consider this. ( )