I know Twilight gets a bad rap for a lot of various reasons, but it was one of the first bigger YA book series that I read when I went from a regular reader to a crazy, voracious reader and I thoroughly enjoyed and loved the entire Saga. It's been a while since I've read the books, but I couldn't resist reading LIFE AND DEATH as soon as I heard about it. I was extremely excited to see how the story was different and how it was the same...and I absolutely loved it! Was it perfect? No, but no book is perfect. Just like Twilight, I'm sure quite a few people have some nasty things to say about it, but I judge books based on how they make me feel and I loved every single moment of reading this! 
 I loved seeing the genders swapped for most of the characters and it was really interesting to see how gender both did and didn't change the story. I loved that Beau still maintained a lot of Bella's character, but that he was also completely different in so many ways. I loved that Edyth had so many of Edward's mannerisms, but that she didn't possess quite so much self-loathing. In fact, I think one of the best parts of reading LIFE AND DEATH was trying to examine how their genders changed each of the characters's personalities. Most of them maintained a lot of their character which I found refreshing--to me it shows that gender isn't what defines us and that sometimes we as a society place too much importance on societal's definition of gender and on gender norms. Beau and Edyth definitely didn't play into "antiquated gender roles" which Edy (somehow Edyth fits having a nickname while Edward never really did! haha) actually points out at one point in the story and I thought that was fantastic! 
 Along with the characters's personalities, I found it fascinating to see how the relationships in the story were different--especially Beau's relationship with his parents. Renee and Charlie were the only bigger characters who didn't undergo a gender swap, so their roles with Beau definitely changed a bit. He was still super close with his mom and he was largely the parent until Phil (he didn't change gender either...although that would've been interesting!) came along, but his relationship with Charlie seemed a lot closer immediately when he moves to Forks. You can always tell Charlie loves Bella, but I felt like he and Beau almost seemed more comfortable together right away. They're definitely not best friends, but I felt like they talked about things a lot more than Charlie and Bella did in Twilight. 
 In her foreword, Stephenie Meyer mentions that she maintains the belief that gender doesn't affect the obsessive, consuming first love that Bella and Edward's story is often critiqued for and I completely agree with her. I don't know about you all but I definitely had friends that seemed to completely change and become totally consumed when they were in new relationships...add in supernatural elements and life-threatening situations and it gets much more complicated...so I've never seen their relationship as that unusual. Extreme yes, but teenage love has been known to be excessive--Romeo and Juliet, anyone. Now though, the tables are switched gender-wise, but their roles are the same. Edyth is still the vampire, protecting Beau from both herself and other dangers, and Beau is still the vulnerable human who can't help falling for the vampire...or being the victim. I liked that Stephenie Meyer never once tried to make Beau the "tough" guy. He recognized that Edyth was stronger and he accepted that, which was pretty dang awesome. 
 As for the story itself, some parts stayed fairly similar to Twilight but other parts were extremely different! I loved the similarities, but I really enjoyed the new parts. You could tell Meyer had fun pushing boundaries on the story and using it as a "what if" scenario for Twilight, which I loved! Overall, I thought LIFE AND DEATH was fantastic!! I definitely recommend it to fans of Twilight and I think even if you had big issues with the Twilight Saga, you might enjoy reading this...unless you hated Twilight because it wasn't "literary"--let's be honest, it was never meant to be and neither is this, but it is fun, and personally, I loved getting to go back to Forks and see it in a slightly different way. Hopefully, you will to! :)