"Twilight" author rewrites book and changes sex of characters

For the tenth anniversary of the Twilight Saga, author Stephenie Meyer released on Tuesday, Oct. 6 a rewritten version of the first book in the series, “Twilight,” in which the main characters were written as members of the opposite sex.

The main characters for “Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined” are Beau and Edythe. The gender swap of Bella and Edward from the original book. However, it is not just Bella and Edward that get rewritten: werewolf Jacob is now Julie, and other characters were slapped with a genderbent version of their name.

Meyer told National Public Radio (NPR) that there are some differences to the plot and many of the characters had their personalities tweaked in transition from the original, though the plot is generally the same.

In an interview with Meyer and NPR, Meyer said that she chose to flip the sexes of many of the characters due to criticism of Bella, who many readers believed was portrayed as a damsel in distress. So, Meyer decided to tell the story from a man’s perspective in an attempt to show that her story is not as sexist as many think it is.

“Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined” is available as a special tenth anniversary edition of “Twilight,” which contains both versions of the novel. It is available online through Amazon and at Barnes and Noble.