Chapter Twenty-Four: The Change
Better Title: Beau Hates His Parents

Yep, he’s a vampire. After the last chapter I was 59% sure this chapter would open with Beau staying human thanks to some sort of vampire anti-venom or prophecy. But he’s a vampire — a real vampire.

The transformation period, which seemed to last for half of Breaking Dawn and most of my adult life, is described in a scant few pages here. Beau suffers through the fevers and the pain, but comes out the other side rather quickly and without ANY need for human blood.

Even Bella, the strongest and most wonderful of all vampires, needed to suck down a few pints of human juice to get through the transformation and/or pregnancy, but after Beau’s heart stops and his skin goes cold, he doesn’t crave so much as a cherry Slurpee.

The Dan from five years ago would then throw this book down the cave and yell, “Take it back, Satan! Take it back!” But now I’m older and wiser and I knew this book would be complete cat puke.

Beau can easily change into a vampire? Cool. Whatever. It makes sense.

Clearly Beau is stronger and better because he’s a man, and this book has taught me that men are great and superior to all women folk. Well done, Ms. Meyer! Message received! Now go back to the kitchen and make me meatball sandwiches, woman!

Actually, I think the real reason Beau’s transformation isn’t as horrific or dramatic as Bella’s is that Meyer simply ran out of room and creative steam. She got to the end and needed to wrap it all up, so she used her author powers, and two cups of misogyny, to write away anything that might be difficult to explain.

During the transformation process, every Cullen member sits beside Beau and explains their backstory. That was easy. No more chapters of flashbacks. This is all so goddamn convenient. This is exactly the worst kind of exposition — shoving it all in one chapter at the end.

So we learn about Jessamine and Eleanor. And for reasons I’m defining as “just end this already,” Royal seems totally cool with Beau. No more conflict here. Just keep moving, folks.

But wait. It gets more forced.

We’re also told that werewolves are real. This is dropped into the chapter like a yo-yo. Here’s some werewolf stuff…and there it goes away again. There’s no real details to anything, and Beau barely reacts. This chapter is basically a list of things Beau would need to know. There are actual shopping lists more dynamic and exciting than this.

Next on the list, the Volturi. There’s one hefty paragraph here about the Italian vampires and what happened to Aro and how Aro’s wife become the leader. There’s talk of a vampire who can steal the powers of other vampires and then another vampire whose power is to give powers to other vampires. It’s the worst.

Meyer took an interesting concept like the Volturi and ruined it even more with a near run-on sentence about things THAT DON’T MATTER TO THE STORY!

Who cares about Aro at this point? We didn’t even know Aro was a character until this lone, out-of-place paragraph. Clearly this is for the die-hard Twilight fans, a group that never invites me to their cupcake breakfasts. (Whatever! I’ll eat my own cupcakes at my own cupcake breakfast! And I’m making hats and everything!)

And last on the list, Beau can never talk to his parents ever again. No biggie.

All this exposition and explanation takes place while Beau is recovering from the transformation. He sits there while other talk at him. Have you ever been stuck in the car with your dad and he just starts telling you about his work? This feels like that. Shut up Dad! I don’t care about your work friends. I don’t even know them. Who the hell is Gary? Why would I know who Gary is? How would I know that Gary hates spicy food?

After becoming a perfect, handsome vampire with muscles, Beau’s first order of business is to go hunting with Edythe. He loves his new strength and speed! But they don’t actually kill any animals. Instead Edythe tells Beau how sorry she is for everything.

Beau can never see his parents again, because of the vampire rules of secrecy, and Edythe feels terrible about that. It’s a very real situation with very real drama. How would you feel about never seeing you parents?

But Beau don’t care. Beau don’t give a shit. Beau just wants to kiss and jump in the forest.

Sure, he ended things with his dad via a screaming match about how Forks was a pathetic town filled with pathetic people, but Beau is fine with it. Even when Edythe pushes the issue, nearly saying, “Dude, you need to deal with this emotionally,” Beau just giggles and jumps.

I hate Beau.

So we never see Beau drink blood…any blood. Seems like a pretty big part of becoming a vampire would be the first time you drink blood. But let’s not worry about that. Moving on…

And then we get the Epilogue!

In the final pages of the book, we witness Beau’s fake funeral. Beau watches with Edythe from a safe distance. The Cullens faked Beau’s death by trashing his truck and using someone else’s corpse. At the funeral, everyone is super bummed, except Eleanor, who thinks this whole thing is funny. I agree. This is funny. I love Eleanor.

While watching from far away, Edythe says her family will tell everyone that she was too distraught to attend the funeral herself, and this distraught feeling will help explain why Edythe will be “home schooled” next year.

What?

Why are the Cullens sticking around Forks for another freakin’ year? Beau is with them! Though he looks sexier, he’s still Beau. Someone could see him? Someone could find out what’s going on! Is Beau going to spend the year inside playing Mario Kart? Why don’t the Cullens just pack up and go to North Dakota while Eleanor comes to my house?

Have you ever noticed that the Cullens are straight-up idiots when it comes to plans? The Rugrats had more intelligent schemes than this gaggle of pretty morons.

Naturally, Beau’s parents aren’t taking this well. Of course they’re not. They think their son died and will never know the truth. But hey, at least Beau is good at jumping now, and has pretty eyes.

Bonnie and Julie are at the funeral, and Bonnie notices something in the distance. Clearly Bon-Bon and Jules are suspicious.

When Edythe and Beau return to the Cullen house, they find three giant werewolves standing in the living room.

WEREWOLVES!!!

Oh, how I like them werewolves. Werewolves are amazing. They are here to protect us. They don’t trust vampires. And they just look cool! Of course, all that good stuff is negated by their penchant for dating toddlers and newborn babies, but let’s focus on the good right now. Besides, if these book deter from the original, that means there’s a chance Julie won’t fall in love with a fetus and Lady-Quil never dates someone who still needs the chubby pencil to write.

The wolves have come because they think the Cullens killed Beau. And then there’s, like, five pages of unnecessary words as the Cullens and Beau explain that the Cullens didn’t kill him, they saved him.

Bonnie thinks Beau made a terrible mistake, but Beau explains that he would have died for real if the Cullens didn’t save him. In a tearful moment of goodbye, Beau asks Bonnie to keep an eye on his dad and to tell Julie what really happened.

And then the book ends with Beau saying something about forever. And he proposes to Edythe.

Final Thoughts:
We all know what Life and Death truly is — a paycheck for Ms. Meyer. This was never about gender equality; it was a gimmick to get people to pay $30 for a book they already own.

The gender swap could have been interesting and fun, but then again, Twilight itself could have been interesting and fun. But this is Stephenie “Murmur” Meyer’s work and as such, it’s a failure. It would have been better if Beau acted more like a genuine cocky teenage boy and then Edythe comes along and puts him in his place. In fact, there are countless ways to make this better AND illustrate gender roles in fiction. Instead, we got a nearly word-for-word remake of Twilight.

Will there be more Twilight books? I hope not. I’d only be interested if the story was significantly changed, or it was an entirely new story. I don’t want Twilight from Edward’s point of view, or Twilight with extra pickles. I want something…else.

I’ll keep blogging books, though. Not sure what’s next. I’m leaning towards The Chronicles of Narnia, because I’ve never read them and it sounds cool.

I’m taking a week or so off from blogging books. I need to focus on what’s really important: Lego Advent Calendars and selling magic pencils. But I’ll be back with a new blog before Christmas…hopefully.

Thanks for reading through Twilight (again) with me. The book was terrible, but I had fun. Hope you did too.

I’ll be auctioning off all my Twilight books and donating the money to charity. Stay tuned for news on that. (Maybe next week?)

You are my life now!

Murmurs/Mumbles/Mutters: 3
Grand Total: 94 (Damn. Thought we’d crack 100, at least.)

Prediction
BEAU: It’s pretty great that everything worked out.
EDYTHE: Yep.
BELLA SWAN: What the hell is this crap?
EDYTHE: Who are you?
BELLA: I’m the scary bitch about to make your mind hurt — that’s who! What’s all this about big boy Beau here getting vampire powers in the first book? You guys had, like, half a date and now you’re a vampire and getting married? What the crow? Do you know what I went through? You know how I got my vampire powers?
BEAU: I went through a lot, too. One time I fell playing volley—
BELLA: Really? I spent hours and days begging my boyfriend to turn me into a vampire! I nearly died like eight thousand times! His own brother tried to kill me once, and even that wasn’t enough to get him to give me my vampire license. And then…only when the ivory god gets me knocked up, and after months of agonizing misery and suffering, and after he rips our child out my belly with his teeth…then he deems me worthy of being a vampire.
BEAU: Sorry?
BELLA: But wait! I also needed to drink human blood. You know what that does to a person’s mind? I DRANK SOMEONE! And you become a vampire and it’s all, “Let’s go leaping in the jungle and hold handsies!”
EDYTHE: Listen, I really think —
BELLA: Shut up, dimples. Hey, I think they mailman just delivered the mail. You better go make him a vampire.
BEAU: I didn’t have it easy. I had lots of —
BELLA: My boyfriend left me. My soulmate left my human ass. He would rather break my heart than turn me into a vampire. You know what that feels like? You know the cold slap of absolute rejection?
BEAU: I —
BELLA: Of course not! You’ve never broken up with anyone! You get everything you want whenever the hell you want.
EDYTHE: You need to step off, lady.
BELLA: How’s about you back the hell up before my creepy-ass brother-in-law goes full-blown SIDEWAYS all up on your face.
JASPER: Sideways!
BELLA: That’s right!
EDWARD: Honey, please. You’re causing a scene.
BELLA: Oh great. Mr. Alabaster is here to tell me to calm the hell down. Typical man. Go wait in the van, Eddie. This ain’t even ‘bout you! Now excuse me while I sideways these spoiled brats into pieces.
EDWARD: Very well, my lamb. May I play the radio?
BELLA: You may certainly not. And I thought I told you to take off your shirt!
JACOB: My wife is now the size of a giraffe. I’m getting worried.
QUIL: They grow up so fast. My girlfriend isn’t afraid of the toilet anymore. But we did see Inside Out and now she thinks there are people in her head and if she drinks water they’ll drown.

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