Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined (Twilight Saga)

by Stephenie Meyer

Celebrate the tenth anniversary of Twilight! This special double-feature book includes the classic novel, Twilight, and a bold and surprising reimagining, Life and Death, by Stephenie Meyer.

Packaged as a hardback 'flip book', this edition features nearly 400 pages of new content as well as exquisite new back cover art. Readers will relish experiencing the deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful love story of Bella and Edward through fresh eyes.

Twilight has enraptured millions of readers since its first publication in 2005 and has become a modern classic, redefining genres within young adult literature and inspiring a phenomenon that has had readers yearning for more. The novel was a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, a Time magazine Best Young Adult Book of All Time, an NPR Best-Ever Teen Novel, and a New York Times Editor's Choice. The Twilight Saga, which also includes New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella, and The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide, has sold nearly 155 million copies worldwide.

• ISBN10: 0316505455
• ISBN13: 9780316505451
• Publish Date: 1 November 2016 (first published 6 October 2015)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 10 May 2022
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[Rinn]

Seriously lazy.

Next thing we know, Meyer will be publishing a gender-swapped version of this book.

[Sarah Says]

So the gender rolls are reversed Bella is now Beau and Edward is now Eydyth. Meyer puts in an explanation at the start as to why she went down this path, trying to prove that Bella was never a damsel in distress, that she was a human in distress in an paranormal world.

The more Meyer strayed from the original the more I liked it in it's own right. AND I really enjoyed the alternative ending for Beau, but I wouldn't have wanted it to go down that way for Bella.
I would say that while I preferred the original, that's only because when I first read it, those ten years ago, I liked imagining I was Bella :-).

So yes most of the main elements are the same: human meats 'good' vampire, human figures out 'good' vampire is a vampire, human and 'good' vampire fall in love, a 'bad' vampire tires to kill human and all the 'good' vampires go into overdrive to protect human, ordinary human outwits 'good' vampires and heads off to their doom.

Bella goes on to have more human adventures and catastrophes before becoming a 'good' vampire.
Beau comes out of this book as a 'good' vampire and has to face Sam's wolf-pack.

[Kelly]

I must admit, I was a Twilight fan all those years ago. I enjoyed it. But since moving onto bigger and better reads, I never truly understood why Twilight was so unanimously mocked... Until now. This was terrible. Bella could shit rainbows while cuddling puppies in comparison to Beau, who could be the biggest whinehole to ever hit young adult. The majority of what is being called 'Guylight' is the same storyline but with a new ending that was not only rushed, but worse then the original. The constant fist clenching and eye fucking was all too much. I would have preferred she pulled up her big girl undies and finish Midnight Sun the fuck off.

"Again, happy anniversary and welcome to the new tenth-anniversary bonus material!
First things first:
I'M SO SORRY."

You should be lady. You bloody should be.

[Angie]

I really enjoyed Life and Death. Sure, I would have preferred Midnight Sun, but gender-bending Twilight was still an interesting twist. I think the author accomplished exactly what she wanted: showing that Bella was in fact a “human in distress” rather than a “damsel.” Beau gets into just as much trouble as Bella does. Perhaps that’s because it’s nearly the exact story, so not much of the challenges have been changed. But isn’t that the point? Bella/Beau is just a human surrounded by vampires.

Life and Death is essentially Twilight with names and pronouns changed. The story is the same, but for me, it did feel different. Mostly that’s because Edyth was way more chill than Edward. Maybe there’s some sexism there, so I didn’t find the same behaviors as creepy coming from a girl. But more than that, Edyth honestly did feel different from Edward. I feel like she smiled more, and was less broody. She was still concerned about hurting Beau, but she was less dramatic about it, I guess. On the other hand, Beau still felt like Bella to me. He’s clumsy, a bit more mature for his age, and is completely dazed by Edyth. Other than being a boy, I didn’t sense much differences from him.

There are a few minor plot changes throughout Life and Death, but nothing that changed the story dramatically. Some changes were pretty much negligible because they were just done because Beau is a boy. For instance, instead of tagging along to go dress shopping, the boys were buy corsages for the dance. And Beau stumbles upon a drug deal rather than nearly being sexually assaulted. The meadow scene is still there, the Cullens still play baseball, and Joss/James still tracks Beau. Although, the ending is very different. That did throw me off, but I liked seeing this alternate ending. It easily could have gone this way for Bella as well.

Perhaps I’m just a sucker, but I don’t care. I thought Life and Death was a fun twist on the original. Did I like it better than Twilight? I don’t think so. It’s not that it’s not as good of a story, but I did go into reading it as an alternate story rather than it’s own thing, so I was constantly comparing. Plus, I’m just use to the original characters and that’s hard to break.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.