Fanfiction Addition: Living Backwards

I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but I love words. It’s why I’m a writer. Why I’m a reader. Why I love lyrics and poems and movies. Words are powerful. Most of us use words for the purpose of communication, and piss-poorly at that, but that’s beside the point. But there are a few of us who wield words like artists wield brushes, painting something beautiful and/or compelling out of what could have been merely mundane.

Caiobella27 is one of these people. She just knows how to use her words. I can’t count how many times, as I was reading Living Backwards, I squealed with delight over the use of an otherwise ordinary word in some clever fashion. It’s a bonus to an already delightful story.

Living Backwards takes an overdone fanfic premise – Bella goes back in time to the mousy, shy 17 year old she was in High School – and crafts it into a truly unique story.

We are introduced, at first, to a 27 year old Bella checking out her old classmates on Facebook. She is successful, self-assured, and, with the help of her friends Alice, Rosalie and Joan (who’s a sparkly flask), she’s a little more spontaneous and adventurous than her 17 year old self.

Alice’s choice in too-tight jeans + Bella’s natural ability to fall and hit her head have Bella waking up in her old bedroom, with Korn in her CD player. Ah, those were the days.

Caiobella27 expertly tiptoes around all the standard cliches. Bella has no clear course, no spirit guide or any intent in mind when she lands back in her past. She hadn’t missed her chance at love, with Edward or anyone else, she had no major wrong to make right. She gets a do-over with no clue as to what she’s supposed to be doing over. Bella is left to her own devices. She draws herself her own set of rules based on movies she’s seen and sets about to right a couple of relatively minor wrongs in her best friend’s lives.

The problem, of course, arrives in an Edward shaped package. The problem is this: 27 year old Bella’s personality meshes pretty damn well with 18 year old Edward’s, something that didn’t happen the first time around.

Watching these two kids fall for each other is an incredible treat. Edward’s tough guy attitude bounces right off of Bella, who isn’t about to take any nonsense from the likes of an arrogant teenager. The result is a camaraderie built of grudging respect and saucy banter that leads them, both kicking and screaming, to an all consuming adoration for each other. The weight of their mutual undoing is made all the worse because we know what Bella knows: as far as Edward’s Facebook image could tell her, he had been happy in his 28 year old life. Falling for her has every chance of messing up what was a pretty good future for him.

The characterizations in this story are wonderful. Bella is confident and quirky, though not in an overdone kind of way. I can easily see that 17 year old Bella we’re used to becoming this incarnation of herself, if she had been allowed to blossom in college instead of marrying her immortal love at 18. Though he exudes a bad boy presence, Living Backward’s Edward is also the loyal, selfless and cocky Edward we all know and love. He still over thinks things, but his thoughts include a few well placed “fucks” where Twilight’s Edward’s words flowed with a little more elegance.

As an added bonus, we do get to see their normal roles flipped – for good reason. For once, it’s Bella making decisions for both of them, thinking she knows better. I like that kind of thing – the shoe being on the other foot. Just one of the many perks of Living Backwards.

All in all, this fanfic is simply a pleasure to read. In Bella and Edward’s banter and Bella’s (mostly) internal monologue of life in 1999 (when she knows what’s happening in 2009), you find laugh-out-loud humor. In Bella’s struggle not to tempt fate or fracture the time-space continuum, you get an intriguing and well-done plot line that will keep you guessing. And, of course, the icing on the cake – the witty wielding of words just adds to the overall enjoyment of the read. This is definitely a fic you want to keep up with.

Living Backwards Links:

Our favorite Living Backwards Quotes

Living Backwards on Fanfiction.net

Living Backwards on Twilighted.net

Ciaobella27 on Fanfiction.net

Ciaobella27′s Twitter