Disclaimer: I read to about 65%. Skim read to about 90% and read to the end. Also, this review will contain spoilers for the alternate ending that are not in spoiler tags.
Years ago, when Twilight was in its prime, someone told me that [book:Breaking Dawn|1162543] was never supposed to happen. That it was the book where Stephenie Meyer was given free reign to do whatever she wanted because the series was so popular, everyone would buy it regardless of quality, and rake in big dough-cheese for her and her publishers. I don’t really know how true that assumption is, but dammit if isn’t true for Life and Death.
Take me for example: I own all of the Twilight books, have read Twilight (just the first book) a total of 4 times, 5 if you include this (and I do), written about some of the good that came of the series (I’m not always a fire-breathing bitch queen), made fun of it, enjoyed parts of it, loathed chucks of it and everything else in between. I also attempted to re-read the series back in 2012 for this little thing I started called Project: HindSight, and had so much fun reviewing Midnight Sun (I really wish she’d finish that), but by the time I got to New Moon (the book I dislike the most), I just couldn’t continue on and abandoned the project.
Over the past few years, I’ve settled on generally disliking everything Twilight stands for while holding onto a morbid fascination and, begrudgingly, bestowing some sort of respect for a series that put YA literature on the map.
So when I heard of Life and Death, literally the day it released, I knew I’d buy it. No questions asked. I was hoping many of the issues I had with Twilight would be corrected with this version. It had so much potential to be great! I never expected there to be huge drastic changes to the story — I did expect it to be pretty much the same as Twilight, so believe me when I say that was the least of its problems.
I won’t bother reviewing this book, because it’s essentially the same as Twilight and I’ve already written a review for that. Just swap around the pronouns in your head as you read it.
In the forward, Stephenie Meyer opens with this:
“But I’ve always maintained that it would have made no difference if the human were male and the vampire female— it’s still the same story. Gender and species aside, Twilight has always been a story about the magic and obsession and frenzy of first love.”
I don’t think she was very successful. There were times when I wondered what Meyer was truly trying to accomplish here. Was she trying to basically say her novel features an unhealthy relationship even with roles reversed? As in, “Hey guys, my book is horrible either way!” Or was her goal to further highlight how Twilight had a lot of instances of sexism, including sexual violence against women? Because if so, then I suppose, yeah, she was successful.
Here’s a general run down: Beau is your classic Gary Stu who falls for The Ultimate Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Edythe. He has no aspirations to do or be anything until he spots the love of his life in his high school cafeteria. Not much has changed with our young, desperate lovers except for their pronouns, but Edythe is still a jerk/control freak/stalker and somehow less creepy than Edward. And Beau is still a very weak character and as interesting as the dirt beneath my shoe. There is an alternate ending which is essentially a pathetic attempt to pack New Moon and Eclipse into a clusterfuck of info-dumping. But more on that later.
What I really want to talk about is the treatment of the female characters.
I don’t know how this was even possible, but reading Life and Death actually made me hate Twilight even more than I originally did. This is mostly because it became shockingly evident that certain scenes (sexual assault) were purposefully left out in this version because the characters didn’t have vaginas. Lovely.
Bella’s attempted rape scene has now turned into Beau’s assault scene. If you remember, in Twilight, while Bella is getting lost in Port Angeles, she runs into a group of drunk men who attempt to sexually assault her. This is made clear by their jeers (“Don’t be like that, sugar.”) and Edward’s later dialogue. But for Beau, his assailants are a mix between female and male and have the intention of beating him up because they think he is a cop. The section is entirely re-written with more dialogue, a gun and threats of death.
Then there is Rosalie’s rape scene, now changed to Royal’s assault scene. Instead of Royal being raped, he’s tricked during the wedding and beat up within an inch of his life. Now, one could argue the time period and say, “Well, that’s happened back then. It’s just how things were.” And, maybe, before I read Life and Death I could have seen that point. But when the two biggest instances of female sexual assault are completely left out when you swap the genders, oy, that’s an issue.
Now that is not to say I wanted to see men get rape in Life and Death. It’s just a glaring problem where I now see those scenes as “Literary Rape,” used as plot devices to add depth and sympathy to Rosalie’s character, and to give Edward a reason to look super heroic in the face of rapists. Maggie Stiefvater said it best in This is a Post About Literary Rape:
“I’m talking about novels where the rape scene could just as easily be any other sort of violent scene and it only becomes about sex because there’s a woman involved. If the genders were swapped, a rape scene wouldn’t have happened. The author would’ve come up with a different sort of scenario/ backstory/ defining moment for a male character.”
That is exactly what happened here.
One could argue that Meyer wrote a more progressive version of Twilight with Life and Death and that’s partly true to an extent. Edythe does appear to try to make her relationship with Beau as equal as possible. But there are constant references to the gender changes as if Meyer is trying to prove something to the reader, and they only seemed to further resign me to the fact that Meyer has no idea what she’s doing. (Bold is mine.)
His straight gold hair was wound into a bun on the back of his head, but there was nothing feminine about it— somehow it made him look even more like a man.
I fumbled for my wallet.
“Um, let me— you didn’t even get anything—”
“My treat, Beau.” “But—”
“Try not to get caught up in antiquated gender roles.”
She turned toward the cafeteria, swinging her bag into place.
“Hey, let me get that for you,” I offered.
She looked up at me with doe eyes. “Does it look too heavy for me?”
“Well, I mean…”
“Sure,” she said. She slid the bag down her arm and then held it out to me, very deliberately using just the tip of her pinkie finger.
It was like Meyer was shouting me, “DO I IMPRESS YOU?!” And I kept going:
In the hands of a more skilled writer, this might have been pulled off flawlessly. I found the changes she made with Beau’s narration interesting. Meyer mentioned in the Forward that Bella is more flowery with her words, where Beau is not. This is a complete understatement. The one thing Twilight actually had going for it, was the occasionally pretty quote. I say occasional, because the novel contains too many short, simple sentences than I usually like in my books. In Life and Death‘s case, the writing has been watered down so much that it feels on par with See Spot Run. And I don’t necessarily think this is a gender thing. Just because a character is a boy, doesn’t mean he can’t be articulate or well-versed.
“Bonnie, there’s something you didn’t know about me.… I used to smell really good to vampires.”
Corny. So very corny.
It’s not uncommon to discover popular YA authors’ inability to write convincing male POVs. *cough*Veronica Roth*cough* And I learned from Midnight Sun, that it’s not exactly Meyer’s forte either, but c’mon! This was really bad, even for her.
The there’s Beau’s obsession with Edythe’s unhealthy** body. Oh, god, I’m so disgusted with this part, and I don’t really understand why it was included.
“Her pale arms, her slim shoulders, the fragile-looking twigs of her collarbones, the vulnerable hollows above them, the swanlike column of her neck, the gentle swell of her breasts— don’t stare, don’t stare— and the ribs I could nearly count under the thin cotton. She was too perfect, I realized with a crushing wave of despair. There was no way this goddess could ever belong with me.”
Is this supposed to show Beau’s unrealistic expectations of women’s bodies? That only vampires can achieve this level of “perfection” that society constantly forces on us? Because there is no other explanation that works well here and I’m really trying to give Meyer the benefit of the doubt and throw her a bone. The issue with this theory is, there’s no indication in the book that this is an unrealistic view. Actually quite the opposite happens later in that same scene:
I had a new definition of beauty.
Sigh. I don’t think I need to go into why this is problematic, so I’ll just leave that there for your critique.
**Unhealthy, as in for majority of women, this is an unattainable beauty standard. Apologies if that came off as body shaming women/girls where that is their healthy. I’m speaking specifically about society’s constant pressure on women and girls to be as thin as possible, many times to the detriment of their physical and emotional health. When Beau describes Edythe, he focuses so heavily on the sharp angles of her bones and it perpetuates the idea that these characteristics make her more beautiful than others. I find these descriptions irresponsible and feel there could have been a better way to describe her.
So let’s talk about the ending. This part will have spoilers beyond this point. This is your one and only warning.
Yes, it’s re-written — horribly, if I’m being honest. During the scene with the ballet studio (which, BTW, Beau didn’t take ballet as a kid because HE’S A BOY. *eyeroll*), everything is pretty much similar expect for the fact that Edythe can’t suck out all the venom out of Beau’s body, leaving him only one possible future: becoming a vampire super early and living happily ever after with his BAE, Edythe.
I wouldn’t have had an issue with the change if it had actually been written without the massive amounts of info-dumping. It reads like Meyer decided last minute that she wanted to only do 2 chapters of the gender swap (which she mentions in the Forward), realized she spent all of her deadline time on re-writing the entire book, and quickly wrote an ending hours before she emailed it to her editor.
She crams the werewolf history, volturi history, rules of being a vampire, and Beau’s human funeral altogether and it’s just so goddamn messy. It also makes the insta-love look even worse because at least Bella had 3 other books and a pining Jacob to consider leaving Edward. It was just an overall hot ass mess that seemed so out of place. This is why I said they just let Meyer do whatever the hell she wants; half that stuff would have never flown with a debut novel or any novel that desired to actually be, you know, good.
Would I recommend this and should you read it? Hard to say. My first response is, “Oh, god, no. Don’t waste your money.” $12.99 is an unacceptable price for an ebook (thank goodness for Kindle returns!). It doesn’t really offer anything vital to the Twilight fandom/universe and is generally a horrible piece of writing that I want to fling stones at. But then the other half of me enjoys the suffering of my fellow book lovers and is considering purchasing this as a gag joke to both of my lovely co-bloggers. Because that’s really all this trite, wish-fulfilling, wankfest of a re-imaginging is good for, and I really, really need to stop being so damn curious about everything. But anyway, I’m rambling when all I really want to say is… the ball’s in your court now, E.L. James. I eagerly await your newest, fan fiction original book.
Kenya Wright
You know. I don’t get why she wrote it. Didn’t she have enough money?? Why not write something new. That’s what writers do! We write new books because its all this stuff running around in our heads.
This makes me think that she really wasn’t much of an artist at all.
The very idea of me re-writing a story that I’ve already put out. . .but just switching the gender and a couple of things. . .it’s disgusting (and bloody boring!)
Something like this would’ve taken barely a week to do while watching the Kardashians and smoking a joint. It’s so simple she could’ve hired an assistant to do it and she spend a day or two on it.
This is what makes it disgusting.
She didn’t pour out her soul. She didn’t entertain or addict, inspire or teach us anything new about life and love. She just manufactured product.
She didn’t write a book.
And that’s what’s so messed up about the book game.
Kate Copeseeley
Welp, you’ve successfully convinced me not to buy it. I AM still hoping a special edition comes out with just L&D so I can read it. Like at the library or something.
It was pretty obvious when I read the series that Breaking Dawn was a big hot mess. I almost gave up on Meyer altogether, but I really liked Host and I thought it showed she was growing as a writer. The problem is, you have to KEEP writing to get better. And she basically took a giant hiatus on her writing career to work on movies. So any chance she had of really doing well with this (plus the time crunch which didn’t really allow for a good editing process) was blown.
Bieke @ Istyria book blog
Hah, looks like we’re review buddies today. x) & I agree with everything you said here. This book felt so pointless. Sigh.
Kairee-Anne @The Wolf Writer's Cave blog
I’m so happy about this review. You literally brought out everything I thought of when I first heard of this version of Twilight. I was a fan of the books when it first came out but I almost flipped a table when I heard about her new release. I just wish she did a completely different book because she just brought shame to herself in my opinion..
Andrea @ The Overstuffed Bookcase
Wow. Thanks for reading and giving this great review so we don’t have to!
Sounds like Meyer was telling herself that she was doing away with “antiquated gender roles” by making Edythe into a “strong female” yet she continued to use those outdated gender roles when it came to Beau. Lovely.
Kyra @ Blog of a Bookaholic
Ever since I heard that Life and Death was about Bella and Edward’s gender swap I wasn’t interested in reading it because it would basically be Twilight all over again. This book sounds really bad and I hate how sexist some of the stuff is (not doing ballet because he’s a boy, the rape/assault scene – SERIOUSLY?!) and the writing looks awful. Thank you for the honest review because I’ve made up my mind completely that I will never touch this book!
Briana @ Pages Unbound
The problem is that people were never really taking issue with Twilight because Bella was human and Edward was a vampire; the fact that one has superpowers and the other doesn’t isn’t what made their relationship unhealthy. The entire point is that Edward’s stalking and controlling behavior and Bella’s complete dependence on him are things that could happen to two very ordinary humans in a relationship, and Meyer is glamorizing it. She can claim all she wants that Life and Death has some deep message about gender, but I think your reviews highlights pretty well the ways in which she failed, leaving us all with no option but to believe she wrote this only for the money.
And readers are rewarding her by buying it. I can only hope more publishers and authors have more artistic integrity and this won’t become a trend in the industry. After Life and Death and Gray, it’s becoming very obvious that people will pay money for a “new” version of an old book, and that’s a really horrible precedent to set.
Tiff @ Mostly YA Lit
Every review I’ve read of Life & Death convinces me that Life & Death is even more sexist than the original book. It honestly sounds to me like reversing the genders has led to illustrating, in even more alarming terms, just how fucked up Stephenie Meyer’s understanding of gender roles is (the literary rape thing is killing me). I’m desperate to read it to see for myself, but honestly, the books were terrible from the beginning…I don’t know if I can put myself through the torture of Meyer’s writing again. Thanks for doing a solid for us, Steph.
Hannah
Thanks for putting yourself through that so the rest of us don’t have to. Ugh. So, so problematic, even if the author did do good things for the YA publishing industry. :/
Georgette
Didn’t read it and am not going to read it, nor buy it.
She wasted time with it, just my opinion.
Thanks for being real in your review.
Ceilidh
There’s so much that strikes me as weird about this whole project.
For one thing, I don’t believe Meyer actually wrote it to refute claims that Bella’s a damsel. I think this was a straight up clap back to EL James post-Grey. She wanted to one up her in some way and this was a clever way to do it. Now I wonder if James is shameless enough to actually play this card. Okay, stupid question, she is.
But with regards to the book itself, it seems futile for anyone to refute claims of sexism by swapping the roles and then changing the language to reflect that gendered switch. Beau doesn’t disprove Bella’s weakness as a female character; he only enforces it because Meyer doesn’t seem capable of writing a layered character or pairing that doesn’t use archaic male-female language and assumptions as its crutch. I keep thinking of the Straw Feminists cartoon on Hark A Vagrant whenever I see Edythe quotes.
I don’t blame Meyer for wanting to retain some creative control over her work after it’s been so thoroughly cannibalised by supposed fans for profit, but this felt misguided at best (and lazy, if the frequent copy-paste passages are anything to go by).
Liza @ Reading with ABC
I didn’t even know about this one until I saw you were reading it in Goodreads. NOT reading it, I’m not even curious and I did like Twilight when I read it.
Vane @ Books With Chemistry
It annoys me too much the fact that only because Beau is a guy, then he’s not going to be raped. That is not to say I *want* him raped (no one really deserves this), but what does that say about our society? Fantastic review, Steph. And thanks for spoiling the book. I was interested about the change of ending, but not *that* interested.
Hannah @ The Irish Banana Review
Yeah, I gotta admit I’m troubled by the rape re-writes. And a lot of the choices made in the writing of this book. Look, I really liked the Twilight series. I see the problems with the books, but I can appreciate them as fiction and the doors they opened for the YA genre.
But this …. WHY? WHY FOR, STEPHENIE MEYER? This was such a silly, trivial attempt at a book. Zero desire to read it and now I have even less desire to read anything else she might come out with.
It seems like a cheap trick to stay relevant and make a few bucks.
Carina Olsen
This review is beautiful Steph. <3 You are amazing. I love that you read this one. But so sad that you were so disappointed with it 🙁 You have made me a bit depressed about wanting to read it, lol. But I still will, someday 😀 I hope I will enjoy it more. But gosh. I will enjoy so many of these things too o.O Like the girl's body. SO NOT OKAY. And the none rape scenes. So not okay either. Ugh. Thank you for sharing about it all sweet girl. <3
Alison
This sounds so dreadful. I actually picked this up in the shop yesterday, curious to know what it was, and was quite intrigued when I realised it was a gender-swapped rewrite. Ooh, interesting idea, I thought. Then I put it back because I have no interest in Twilight (Read the first two books, and will probably read the rest at some point, but there are so many other books in my tbr queue that I haven’t got around to it yet).
Still, if it had been done well, with consideration and care and genuine thought put into the plot and how things might change if the genders change, it could have been an interesting idea.
But that loving description of Edyth’s body — her ribs, using the word ‘twigs’ and following it up with ‘I had a new definition of beauty.’ — Yeah, that’s making my stomach turn. Who thought that was a good idea in a book intended for teenagers (or anyone, for that matter)? Or is it a deliberate attempt to put the lives and health of teenagers at risk?
Beth W
Bwahahaha! Nice. Thanks for that. Any time an author thinks ‘gender swapping’ means things like a young male can’t take ballet or be eloquent, I want to shake them. Don’t they know they’re reinforcing a false, and negative, gender stereotype, especially if they have “strong female characters” (in quotes because this is Meyer we’re talking about). Like, girls can be “boyish” in hobby and attitude and it makes them good, but boys can’t be “girlish” or they’re…what, gay? Not ‘really’ men? Ugh. If you really want to make a positive change, gender swap and JUST change the pronouns/names. Leave all the same incidences in the book. See how it shakes things up for readers, and the discussions that come out of it. Or better yet, write something new and hone your “skill” (again, in quotes because it’s Meyer) instead of slaughtering the cash cow in the public square.
Tasya
Ever since I heard about this book, I have no intention to read this. It just so unoriginal. Why didn’t she finished Midnight Sun or write a new book?? If she had time to wrote this, surely she’ll have time to write other books. But she chose to write this.
I read Twilight long time ago, and I think it was okay. But as I grew older I began to see flaws in the books. I won’t read this, and your review convince me to not reading it! 🙂
Tasya
not midnight sun, it’s the seeker, the 2nd book in the host 🙂
Aj
It sounds to me like Meyer is being totally consistent with the Meyer style in the rest of the Twilight series, so one could argue her decisions with characters are appropriate. Some of these comments come across as envious of her easy success, I hope I’m wrong about that, though.
Isabel
I agree with you on almost everything you said. I’m actually delighted to see that our reviews and opinions are really close. It really pisses me off when authors use rape to make female characters look weaker. It was about time someone said something about it, and I’m very glad you did.
I’m leaving a link to my review, in case you want to check it out. https://sunburntreviews.blogspot.com/b/post-preview?token=AyHeuFIBAAA.ZTfxnan2VryYNPDXxHk8E2mC_mD8Msbgk-vlExfKJ3wcuI6BewzEq8QnEHy_40LHwF8hdfTi4cgAZNaQH06Buw.CwRd4JcQ_E_XZCI5wsBkow&postId=5491065061253721076&type=POST
ethanos
oh my god stephenie meyer. You’ve done it again. In twillight, you ripped my heart out and threw it on the floor, then now you return to stamp on it and shatter it. I totally could not stop reading life and death, and i managed to finish it within 3 hours. And then, i find myself thinking, when’s the sequel?? Then it hits me, there ain’t gonna be a sequel, cos if you did the sequel, you’d have to go on and do the whole series, and god knows that you’d have to reinvent breaking dawn, cos it flipped.
You totally did it on the female to male part though. I could’nt help referring back to twillight everytime, and it was just perfect!
Annon
I found it interesting. Yes I agree that her rape sceen changes did affect the story and took you out of the story.
I have an issue with people commenting on a book they have never read. Yes you read this review and like sheep you are going to take this a bible… and on top of it criticise a book you haven’t read, basing them off this review.
I read the book and whatever you say about it I found it enjoyable and interesting. It was an easy read and I liked the way Meyer changed Bella’s voice to Baue’s and it totally made sense. Granted I missed Alice and Jasper….Archie and Jess were not the same and the ending could have been a bit more elligant and imaginative. I found myself on the last page and I wanted more.
GWEN
I READ THIS BOOK AND DID NOT LIKE IT.IT WAS THE SAME TWILIGHT FOR GODS SAKE.BEAU ACTED TOO MUCH LIKE BELLA; NO WILL OF HIS OWN,AND THERE’S NO WAY ANY SELF RESPECTING GUY WOULD LET A GIRL(SUPER HUMAN OR NOT )TALK HIM INTO RIDING ON HER BACK,UNLESS THEY WERE IN DANGER AND NEEDED TO MOVE FAST.I THINK STEPHENIE MEYERS HAS A MENTAL PROBLEM IF SHE BELIEVES SHE WROTE A NEW TWILGHT.SHE SAYS IT WAS EASY TO WRITE.WTF WRITE WHAT?!!
Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Book Blogs & Websites – Forty-Two Thoughts
[…] of the Twilight series on Goodreads, and followed the links back to the author’s blog. I love this review of Midnight Sun which captures exactly why this book is so weird and […]