More good vampire reads

You simply cannot be involved with anything involving young adult (YA) literature and NOT have heard all the kerfuffle about Stephenie Meyer's vampire series. So I took the plunge and listened to the first of the 4 books in the series to be told from Bella Swan's point of view. Twilight-- as well as its two sequels (New Moon and Eclipse)-- have all been on the young adult section of the NYT bestseller list. The fourth book, Breaking Dawn, is due for release in the U.S. on August 2. There's a movie version of Twilight forthcoming. So now you know at least as much as I did when I decided to check this out. Bella Swan is 17 and has just moved to Forks, WA to live with her dad, Charlie, who just happens to be the police chief in town. She has resided up to this point with her mother in Phoenix and isn't at all happy about moving to the gray, soggy, cold Olympic peninsula, but she's trying to give her mom and new step-dad some room to get their life together. Bella is a klutz. She falls down walking on a flat surface, which makes sports, dancing, etc. totally out of the question. She's never had a boyfriend. Now, however, every boy in the high school seems to want her for a girlfriend and she's not really interested. Instead she is fascinated by Edward Cullen who sits in the cafeteria with his three siblings--all adopted children of the local surgeon Carlisle Cullen. The Cullens don't mix with anyone. They are beautiful, graceful, and apparently rich--everything Bella considers herself not to be. Edward seems initially to have taken an intense and puzzling dislike to Bella and disappears from school for several days after an abortive attempt to transfer out of biology class where he is her lab partner. Predictably they fall in love with each other, which is a real problem because Edward is--of course--a vampire. Meyer does insert some interesting twists in the body of myth about vampires. For example, they can't go out in the sun because they....glitter?! Also, all vampires are not created equal, nor do they evolve similarly. The Cullens strive to be 'good' vampires, but you can be sure that some bad ones show up. In short, it was a treat. I got so engrossed that I stayed up til the wee hours on a Friday night so I could listen to the rest of the book once I got about halfway into it. You can be sure that as soon as the pile of review books is cleared from my desk, I'll be back for the rest. Oh, and I'm ahead of you in the Netflix queue to get the movie :-)