Is Stephenie Meyer Taking Her Fans for Granted?

Because I haven't read even one paragraph from any of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books, I can't claim to know anything about them other than what I've picked up second hand or from my own limited observation.  Based on seeing them in every bookstore I've been in for the last several years, I suspect they have all sold well.  I know that my granddaughter read and enjoyed the whole series and had to see all the movies based on the Twilight characters.  But as much as she liked the books, she did say that they are not very well written compared to a lot of other stuff she's read recently

But all that said, news today from USA Today that, rather than write a whole new novel...you know, one with a different plot...Meyer has chosen to re-write Twilight by simply flipping the genders of her main characters.  Maybe it's because this is so close to the same approach that the hack who made millions from Shades of Grey took recently in which she just retold her less-than-stellar novel from a different point-of-view, that Meyer's approach sort of bothers me.  It just seems lazy and presumptive on her part.  But I am willing to concede that her presumption that her fans are going to be willing to shell out big bucks again for anything with the Twilight logo on it is absolutely correct.

That's right, in Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, which is available today as bonus material in the 10th anniversary edition of Twilight, the gender of the two main characters (played by Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart in the film adaptations) has been swapped, and the book becomes the story of a female vampire and the human teenage boy she falls in love with. 

"A question that had come up at a lot of signings and other things was about Bella being a damsel in distress. And it’s always bothered me a little bit, because anyone surrounded by superheroes is going to be in a bit of distress," she said. "And so I thought if I switched it around a little bit to see how a boy does, and you know, it’s about the same."

 What changes when the genders change? Not too much. "The further you get in the more    it changes because the personalities get different," Meyer explained. "It’s just a love story, it doesn’t matter who’s the boy and who’s the girl." 

Perhaps I'm being a little too hard on Meyer for going in this direction, but that last sentence I quote from the article does not give me a lot of confidence in the quality of this or any of the other books in the series:


"It's just a love story, it doesn't matter who's the boy and who's the girl."  

Post #2,580