New Twilight Book By Stephanie Meyer Swaps Edward And Bella’s Genders

Author Stephanie Meyer has marked the tenth anniversary of the first ‘Twilight’ novel by writing a completely new version of the book that swaps the genders of the lead characters.

The 442-page tome, called ‘Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined’, changes Bella to a chap called Beau and Edward to a lady vampire called Edythe. The red apple on the front cover becomes green as well (see below).

Meyer said the rewrite was a response to criticism that the original book was sexist, with Bella constantly needing to be saved by male characters and dropping everything in her life to be with a man.

She writes in the book’s forward (via Mashable): “My answer to that has always been that Bella is a ‘human in distress,’ a normal human being surrounded on all sides by people who are basically superheroes and villains.”

“She’s also been criticised for being too consumed with her love interest, as if that’s somehow just a girl thing. I’ve always maintained that it would have made no difference if the human were male and vampire female — it’s still the same story.”

“[Then] I thought to myself, ‘Well, what if I put that theory to the test? That might be fun.“

Meyer said the gender-swapped characters are "just slightly different” to the originals, but that the male version of Bella is “not as angry”.

She told ‘Good Morning America’ that the book is a one-off, so don’t go expecting any further adventures of Beau and Edythe for now.

We bet somewhere in Hollywood a producer is quietly snapping up the movie rights anyway in just in case…

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Image Credits: Summit Entertainment/Twitter/@GMA