Title: Life and Death
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 389
Rating: 4/5
Life and Death is an interesting read because it’s basically a gender-swapped version of the first Twilight novel. It’s as simple (and as complicated) as that.
Before I read it, I thought that it was just Bella and Edward whose genders would be swapped, and so it was interesting to see that a lot more of the characters were swapped including Jacob and Carlisle. At the same time, I thought it was weird that Meyer changed all of the other genders but didn’t do it with Bella’s parents.
I also thought that swapping the genders wouldn’t make any difference to the story, but I was wrong about that. It actually brings a bunch of new dynamics to the table that we get to play with. It’s actually quite a lot less creepy when an older, immortal woman pursues a younger, mortal man, although I’m not sure why that is. It shouldn’t be, but we live in a society, and I’ve been conditioned by it.
Then there’s the fact that the third act ends very differently, although I don’t want to say too much about that because I don’t want to spoil things for you. I’d been told to look forward to it and I wasn’t disappointed.
For me, Twilight was always the best book in the series, and so this reimagining of it works well. I also think that it wrapped things up nicely and made sure that there was no need for Meyer to keep going with the rest of the series. She could do, but if she did then she’d be dealing with an entirely new series instead of just a retelling.
At the same time, I’ve been working my way through the series on audio book for a while now, and I’m pretty glad that I’ve finally reached the end of it. I just kind of wish that Life and Death had just been the first and only book in the series, because then it would have been a lot better than it eventually turned out to be.
So there you have it. No more sparkly vampires for me, although I will be checking out Host. Stephanie Mayer can tell a decent tale, y’know.
