The popular franchise of Twilight is about to get a new addition to the story for the joy of fans and readers all over the world.In honor of the first novel 10th anniversary, the author Stephenie Meyer has written a 442-page reimagining of the novel that made her a publishing sensation. The vampire-romance gained worldwide recognition and sold over 100 million copies,consisting of four widely popular books that ended up being translated into 37 different languages and ultimately became one of today’s biggest selling novels of all time.
The Twilight saga also proved to be very successful in movie theaters with five massive box office hit movies that, as of today, have grossed over $3.3 billion in worldwide revenues.
This new chapter for the franchise is titledLife and Death: Twilight Reimagined, and in the new novel the big twist is that this time around, the author has switched the roles and genders of the protagonists,Bella Swan who was portrayed in the movies by Kristen Stewart is now a boy named Beau (short for Beaufort) and the vampire Edward Cullen who was played by Robert Pattinson isnow Edythe.
The author states that “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."
The new book opens with teenager Beau arriving in the rainy town of Forks in Washington State to live with his father Charlie, with the author deciding to keep the gender of the father as it was in the original novel.
The author's decision was prompted because of the large criticism that the main female character Bella has receive in the past.“Bella has always gotten a lot of censure for getting rescued on multiple occasions, and people have complained about her being a typical damsel in distress,” Meyer said. “My answer to that has always been that Bella is ahuman in distress, a normal human being surrounded on all sides by people who are basically superheroes and supervillains."
This is certainly not the first time that a hugely successful book is being rewritten by its author.
Just a few months ago the Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James released the book Grey in which the popular storyis written from the male character's point of view. The move proved to be very successful with the book selling over one million copies in its first week of release
Certainly the new Twilight book will be no exception to that kind of success and to celebrate the10th anniversary and promote the new novel, Meyers will be touring in New York and Los Angeles. Events and signings start Tuesday and run through Wednesday, October 14.
