Twilight: Life or Death Review of Snark

So here we are. The review. Back when Twilight was a thing, I decided to martyr myself and read it for the sake of being able to completely state my opinion of it without being accused of not reading it. And now, for some stupid reason, I decided to read this one too, because I can’t help my curiosity. Not because I thought it was going to be better, mind, but just to see how much worse it would be. And boy, was it worse. Meet Beau, aka Male Bella. Stephanie states that 5% of the changes she made to his book was because Beau was a boy. Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that just wasn’t enough. He is pretty much the same as Bella except with a few clumsy attempts from Stephanie to ‘butch him up’ which fell so flat they had no hope of being scraped off the ground. Things like talking about “Man Codes” like about not taking the girl your bro wants. Ha, “Man” Codes.



He’s just as much a clutz as Bella was, so much so that Edythe protects him just as much as Edward did, and it’s just wrong when it’s from a female perspective. I haven’t even read feminist based books that were this lame. This manages to escalate into piggyback rides that makes Beau toss his cookies.

(I couldn’t find a gif for this one, so I had to draw my own)

 

At least there was no “Hang on tight spider monkey” scene. Although I would have loved to see Edythe haul him up a tree like Jane of the Jungle. And the kissing scenes; tedious in the original, but now just creepy because Edythe takes point and won’t let him kiss her back because it’s “dangerous”.

 

 And when they’re running from bad vamps, he can’t even do his own seatbelt up in the big bad Jeep.

 

He doesn’t eat, like at all except when he makes food for Charlie. I have two brothers so I know for a fact that teen guys eat and eat and eat. I have never known a teenage boy who won’t eat at least four square meals a day and Beau is never hungry at school so he gets a lemonade. Not a soda, a lemonade. Now I’m not saying lemonade is a girly drink but guys don’t drink it unless it’s their grandma’s or their elderly neighbor’s that’s served with cookies. Not in the school cafeteria where your bros can see.

 

 So so far we have determined that he’s a clutz, he doesn’t eat, he’s a whipped, hen-pecked man, (and I use the term 'man' only biologically) and he eats like a nervous teenage girl. Oh yeah, and he’s always blushing like a girl too. Guys can blush, yeah, but not all the time, not like Bella. I was embarrassed for him. Oh yeah, and let’s not forget the fact that he pooled winter clothes with his mom before leaving Arazona.

  (pg 5) My mom and I had pooled our resources to supplement my winter wardrobe, but it still wasn’t much.




And he apologizes just way too much for anyone who is not Tom Hiddleston. So that’s enough about the despicably mediocre Beau, let’s introduce the gender swapped vamp fam.

Edythe, first of all is kind of just like Edward, but she’s a girl so it’s creepier. Talk about cougar on the prowl. Now at least it makes sense that she likes to hunt wildcats so much… And the whole “Stay away from me I’m bad news”/ “I’m tired of avoiding you, Beau”/ “But seriously….” Thing was just as annoying and made just as little sense as in the original. Talk about whip lash. But I will admit it kind of makes more sense with her being a female. Because, let’s face it, girls just are more wishy-washy. It’s the truth.

I will say that a Volvo was more of a chick car, but I love how Stephanie is laboring under the assumption that a Volvo is a cool car just because they’re expensive. I’m not even going to go there right now, because that’s a whole other conversation in itself.

 

And another thing against Beau is that he’s not a car guy, and yeah, not all guys are car guys, but it’s kind of built into the male psyche that they at least like the look of a certain car. But Beau doesn’t care, I mean, he was right that the BMW that one of the other vamps had wasn’t a cool car *cough-golfercar-cough* but he didn’t care about it at all. Anyway, rant over.

Back to business. The vamp fam. Everyone is gender swapped. Except Charlie and Beau’s mom, which I’m at least glad about, that would have made it so much worse. And so Carlyle is a woman. I can’t remember their dumb non-mainstream names, so I’ll call her Vamp Mom. Vamp Dad was just as soft and sensitive as Beau and it was just as painful, almost in an effeminate way. Creepy. And then you had Male Alice, Jesa-something, Amazon Girl and ManBun. They were essentially the same as they were before but with unneeded gender swapping. Boring, and with even weirder names than before.

And then there’s the female werewolves. First off, let me just say that Native American tribes are not matriarchal so this is just really stupid, and in this story literally had even less of a point as in the original. (More on that and the ‘alternate ending’ later)

There is really no end to the lameness that this book gave the world. One thing that comes to mind is the fact that Beau actually thought Edythe regretted saving him from getting crushed by his soon to be creepy stalker “girlfriend” who nearly ran him over in a van. How insecure was he? I mean normal people don’t usually regret saving anyone’s life unless they are a psychopath. Or unless you are me and you could have ended this thing before it started.

 

RIP Beau and Bella Swan. Oh yeah, and the infamous “mugging” scene from the original where Bella was nearly attacked and Edward came to save her but didn’t for some reason want to eat those scum. Well, let me explain this. In the beginning of the book, when Beau is at the airport, he literally runs into someone with his suitcase and that person looked a little upset. Bet you thought that was just a way to show how clumsy he was, right? Wrong. They were so upset that the followed him to town months later and decided they were going to kill him. Top hole plotting Stephanie. And here I was expecting a bunch of rabid hookers coming to attack him.

 

Edythe is just as controlling as Edward was but it’s creepy as a woman. Women do not make men eat or take care of themselves unless they are their mother. In fact, she acted way too much like Beau’s mother and I hope I don’t need to explain why this is not okay.

Now, I feel I should share with you some of the highlights of this delightful literary masterpiece: (The brilliant conversation that takes place after the “attack” scene)

 (pg. 121-122) Unwillingly, I pulled my hand from hers. It felt like I’d been holding a handful of ice cubes.
 “Better?” I asked.
 She took a deep breath. “Not really.”
 “What is it, Edythe? What’s wrong?”
 She almost smiled, but there was no humor in her eyes. “This may come as a surprise to you, Beau, but I have a little bit of a temper. Sometimes it’s hard for me to forgive easily when someone…offends me.” 
“Did I—“ 
 “Stop, Beau,” she said before I could even get the second word fully out. “I’m not talking about you.” (…)”Do you realize they were actually going to kill you?”
 “Yeah, I kinda figured they were going to try.”
 “It’s completely ridiculous!” (…something about no one gets murder in Port Angeles…)”Why does everything deadly come looking for you?”
 I blinked. “I…I have no answer for that.” (…)
 “So I’m not allowed to go teach those thugs a lesson in manners?”
 “Um, no. Please?”

Okay, Batman, sorry they tried something in your city. Seriously, there are so many parts in this book that don’t make sense. No one ever said she wasn’t allowed to teach them manners, I think Stephanie just put random dialogue in that has no connection.

 

This is another favorite when, after the attck, Edythe makes Beau eat something to stave off shock and won’t allow him to pay for it even though she didn’t order anything.

  (pg 135) “Try not to get caught up in antiquated gender roles.”

As I said before this book even goes beyond feminist.

And let’s not forget Edythe’s budding serial killer/stalker confession when she plays her special song on the piano for Beau.

(pg. 256) “I thought of this one,” she said softly, “while I watched you sleeping. It’s your song.” The song turned even softer and sweeter. I couldn’t speak.



Yeah, I’m pretty speechless myself.

And then this gem where the vamp whooping up on Beau gets a little creepier than necessary.

 pg. 347) “It doesn’t want to scream,” she said in a funny little singsong voice. “Should we make it scream?”

 Yes, Precious, we should.

 

So about the end. It was actually a surprise, there is an alternate ending to this, did you know? Because Beau can’t get pregnant and die in childbirth so why should Edythe have to turn him? Well, because the mean vampire bit his little finger and he was too broken (even though he wasn’t any more broken than Bella) but apparently Edythe didn’t think she would be able to stop drinking Beau like a juice bag so she just decided to turn him instead. And then they all lived in mediocrity together, the end.

   

 Fun times. Well, I guess I did scrape up a couple pros to this one:

 The shopping scene was much shorter with guys just buying corsages instead of prom dresses.

 And so in conclusion: Should you read this book?

 

 Do I recommend it?



Conclusion:



 

 I think I spent more time picking gifs for this review than Stephanie did writing it. R. I. Pieces Twilight. Let's not do this again for the 20th anniversary.