Sparkly Vampires

I just finished re-reading 'Luminosity', which in case you don't know, is a full retelling of 'Twilight', only this time around Bella is very, very bright, and doesn't take any crap from anyone, not even Edward. She still falls in love with him, but throughout the entire thing she's very much her own person, and she works very hard to always be in control of her own life.
I like this one a lot. There are definitely flaws; Bella can come off as a bit cold, and the Cullens put up with an immense amount of shit from her (though as Bella herself observes, they have good reasons to be patient, given the circumstances), and the Volturi can seem a little too passive (right up until they're suddenly not), but even so this is an outstanding piece of work.
The sequel, 'Radiance', is worth reading too, though personally I don't like it nearly as much.

I've never read the actual Twilight books, so I can't really say for certain that this version is better... but I strongly suspect this version is better. It seems like fixing the Bella character really does fix most of the issues with the story--given a lead character I can root for, it doesn't bother me at all that the vampires sparkle.

Check it out if you're curious.