I start hanging around with vampires

Twilight (#1 of Twilight series) ***
By Stephenie Meyer

OK, before I start telling you what's wrong with this book, let me say that I'm over 50 and I REALLY want to be a vampire as Meyer has conceived them--perfect body (to attract potential prey), flawless memory, wisdom of the ages, graceful, fast, immortal, and with special talents that would help me see into the future of, say the stock market, so supplemental Medicare insurance and retirement income problem solved!

That said **SPOILERS APLENTY FOLLOW** "Twilight" is an uneven read about a teenage girl who meets a teenage boy who turns out to be a vampire, except that he and his adoptive family (coven) decide not to prey on humans (inside joke, they refer to themselves as "vegetarians").

Vampire Boy and Human Girl meet when she transfers to a new high school, but owing to his blood lust, always beneath the surface, and her trust issues, it takes them awhile to become friends and fall in love.

Eventually Vampire Boy, who's built like the proverbial brick outhouse, has the chiseled looks of a GQ model and car to go with, and wants the Human Girl because she smells good and he can't read her mind like he can other people, which is apparently a turn-on.

The romance is hot but chaste. The kiddies can't consummate their relationship because a) this is a book for teenagers who aren't supposed to have sex, and b) Vampire Boy would probably bite Human Girl and turn her into one of the Undead, though, for reasons I described above, I can't really see a downside to this.

After about 300 pages of sexual frustration, which you will either piss you off or keep you up reading this until 4 a.m., Meyer finally kicks in a plot line involving the good vampires having to save Human Girl from some bad vampires, and that is pretty exciting and nicely plotted.

So what's not to like?

The characters, particularly Human Girl who narrates the book, is kind of mousy. And Vampire Boy, while he has a nice bod and dresses snappy, really doesn't seem to have much upstairs to recommend him. They're kind of vapid, really, which is maybe why I can't remember their names (OK, his is Edward--like Eddie Munster!--but I'm blanking out on hers and I don't reall care enugh to go look it up).

The back story about the vampires is great, as far as it goes, but leaves you wanting a lot more. Edward almost died in the 1918 flu epidemic in Chicago until he was bitten by a kindly vampire doctor and taken on as an adoptive son. Seems like there might be a historical teaching moment there, but no details.

The moral questions underneath the story are good. What do the good vampires gain from not preying on humans, which is clearly contrary to their natures? Are they damned if they do prey on humans if that's how God made them? Is it right for Edward to listen in on other people's conversations telepathically? Should he try to transform his girlfriend into a vampire (you KNOW she's begging for it by the end of the book) so they can be together? What about the head vampire's policy of feeding on humans only when they're at death's door and and would otherwise die?

But all these interesting elements that, in 400-plus pages, could have been more keenly developed, remain woefully underdeveloped.

Perhaps Meyer was simply dazzled by the vampires she invented. They do that, you know. Remember how Bela Lugosi as Dracula was always telling women in diaphanous lingerie to "look eento my eyes ..."