My Sibling The Mythical Being! discussion

Hey there! This is the discussion for the sixth book in the My Sister the Vampire series; Love Bites (one of my favs!)

Please remember that this discussion may contain spoilers below for this book and possibly others in the series - as we DO allow them here.

Thanks, and as always, have fun! ;)

Haven't got around to re-reading this one yet for this month's Book of the Month - reading too many books at the moment! Looking forward to reading it again though, one of my favourite bits is where Vamp! magazine comes to do a fashion shoot again, but this time in Transylvania! Or is that in Date With Destiny . . . ?

Not a clue what happens in this one! Will have to read it this month definitely. :p

Lol, typical Sophie. :P

I've been re-reading this book (yep, again) recently and at one point Prince Alex mentions a poem he likes, which I was curious about. The poem is called Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens. Here it is:

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

All Alex says about the poem is "There are so many ways to see the same thing." but I get the impression it's his favourite poem because of the way he says he loves poetry, then immediately asks Olivia if she's read this one. (it's on page 93 if you're interested)

I quite like poetry and to be honest I'm not a huge fan of this one. It might grow on me but at first glance it seems sort of all over the place. What about you guys? I know this isn't strictly Sister the Vamp talk but I thought it would be interesting to see what anyone else thought of this poem. :)

I agree, this poem feels messy. I think it's one that grows on you the more you read it. I like stanza XII 'The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying.' Was this the only specific poem that was mentioned?

Yeah, you know actually it's grown on me already just reading it back now. Really? That stanza is atmospheric because it's short in the middle of two longer ones, but it makes literally no sense to me, lol.

My favourite is IX, though I also really like III and VII. Yes, this was the only poem to be mentioned. Alex did also tell of a story about a princess who once lived at the Lazar manor (if I remember correctly), though I'm pretty sure Sienna Mercer would have made that one up.

Turns out Alex actually said more about this poem later in the book...

"The poem is an intense study of one thing, analysing it from every angle - almost obsessed over. ... I think the poet wanted to show that you can't judge something, or someone, at first glance. There's so much to see beyond."

(Love Bites page 130-131)

It's almost like Alex is telling me off for what I said before about the poem at first glance, lol. In all seriousness though, I like the way Alex describes this poem. It's also cool when you think that he's probably talking about Tessa and the Queen judging her. I guess that's one of the reasons this poem is included.

On that thought, rereading this book has really made me appreciate how good Sienna Mercer is at foreshadowing. The way Alex and Tessa's romance was hinted at throughout was really, really cool. And I love the way that Ivy and Olivia noticed something was weird between them and between Tessa and the Queen, but they just misinterpreted it. To me that's the best kind of foreshadowing because if Ivy and Olivia hadn't noticed, it either would have seemed really blind of them, or we wouldn't have noticed it either, which defeats the whole point of foreshadowing. Take note, authors!

I like the underlying message of 'time goes on' in that stanza. It's also atmospheric like you said.

Haha! That does sound like he's telling you off.

Absolutely. Foreshadowing can be great when it's done right. You're making me want to re-read this book so much!

I re-read this book for what must be the thousandth time now, and thought I'd just come on here and talk gush about it to you guys.

I absolutely love the decadent, historical manors and palaces that this book takes place in. It's our first proper change of location in the series and what cooler place to go than Transylvania?! I love how Sienna Mercer describes the untamed countryside and close-knit communities there - it's truly magical. So glad we got to go back there later in the series!

Another thing Sienna Mercer always does well is romance, and I think this book really shows that off (clue is in the title, haha). Alex and Tessa's romance is super cute and so well foreshadowed, as we discussed above.

Something I really like about this book is Ivy's pretty progressive views on Valentine's Day. She talks about it being a big commercial plot which thesedays has no real point but for companies to make money - which when you think about it, is totally true. I'm not really sure what it means for this moral when she embraces Valentines at the end, but I kind of like that she loosened up and accepted that romantic gestures can be a nice thing.

I do think Olivia is undeniably pretty obsessed with Jackson in this book, and somewhat jealous at the beginning. I think the latter is understandable - at Jackson's signing she had all these expectations of having a nice goodbye with him and what she got was hours of other girls obsessing over him and about a minute of rushed contact with him. But I think she kind of let her worries about Jackson get in the way of appreciating the first time meeting her grandparents as the book goes on. And, even worse, this was almost rewarded with Jackson surprising her at the end. It's a really small thing, but perhaps a slight chip in the flawless diamond that is this story. :D

I actually think I'd have liked to have seen more of the family stuff. Everything we got about the twins and their grandparents was amazing, and my heart really went out to Charles in his little background storyline. What an awesome (and realistic!) arc for him when being reunited with his parents. The moments we got of him with his daughters were amazing too - when him and Ivy were lamely dancing at the ball and he was like "This isn't really our scene, is it?" I can't help grinning when I read it. Gah, it's so cute!

I loved that Georgia and her photo shoots made a comeback here - it's always so glamorous and just pure fun to read. I really noticed while reading this how often Sienna Mercer describes what people are wearing, and I think that's really cool. It's an interesting way of getting an insight into people's personalities and helping us really picture scenes. Plus I think it appeals to a lot of the tween girls reading this.

One of those tiny, insignificant things in the books that no normal reader would pay heed to but here on Siblical Being we love having deep discussions about is the twins' hair colour. On page one it says The doors slid open and blasted hot air in their faces, sending Ivy's black hair and matching scarf flitting behind her. then later on it definitely says Olivia has dark brown hair - plus the twins both have brown hair on all the covers. That's what I've always imagined them both to have, but I remember in a later book for a switch Olivia has to wear a black wig to impersonate Ivy, and now there's this. Identical twins should have the same hair colour, right? So either Ivy's dyed her hair, or this is just a mistake in the writing. It's probably the former, BUT later in this book Ivy pretends to be Olivia and nobody sees through it. It makes no sense! Any thoughts?

Yaaas finished this again yesterday and it's sooo good!!

I also loved the change of scene. It made me laugh at one point when... "As they drove up the semi-circular gravel driveway, Ivy realised that the Queen's estate made her grandparents' house look like a shed." Some crazy nice shed that would be!

I loved how although this book is based around Valentines Day and some of the main storylines are romantic the main focus of the book is love. Familial love and friendships as well as romance. Like what the Countess said towards the end "We are so happy to have our family together on Valentine's Day, knowing there is so much love under our roof." Aww!

When I first read this book I found Jackson so infuriating. This time round I could totally see why he acted how he did (with work stress at his age), not that that excuses it. Especially not giving away the present Olivia gave him, though he was trying to be nice. I don't want book characters to be perfect because people aren't, so I can't really complain about this storyline. Interesting to have a bit of conflict. I still don't understand the 'See ya!' text. Like why would you send that Jackson?!

I've never before really thought about the fact that Jackson has a book out at this point. In fact on page 27 it could be hinting that it's not even his first book, "the store was so packed with people clutching copies of his new book, Jackson's Journal, that his signing desk was hidden from view." Not necessarily but 'his new book' could mean it's not his first. Also it's mentioned he's on the cover of a Romanian magazine. Jackson's doing well for himself!

Yes I also noticed that quote when Charles and Ivy were dancing, sooo cute.

I don't think identical twins can have different hair colours, that is weird. Though they didn't think twins could be one human and one vamp so maybe we're just wrong about this stuff. Dark brown and black hair could possibly look the same in certain lighting though that would be still be a fatal flaw in their switching plans if they had different hair colours. Strange.

I haven't read this book in a couple of years so it was really lovely to come back to it. One of my favourites of the series definitely. So heart-warming and exciting.

I loved the writing in this book from this...

This is spiralling totally out of control, she thought, gulping hard.
This could not get any worse.
'Does Olivia like the dress?' Jackson asked, eyes shining.
Oh no. It's just got worse.

...to Ivy's musings on still life.

'What do you think of this?' Ivy asked, pausing in front of a painting of a flower pot.
'It looks like all those flowers are dead,' Jackson replied.
'Mmm,' Ivy replied, pretending to consider it. 'The artist must have been commenting on the whole genre of still life. What is life when it is still?' She had no idea what she was saying but she hoped it sounded good.
'Yeah, that's deep,' Jackson said, not engaging. 'Can we find Olivia now?'

I actually stumbled across this on the Olivia Abbott Wiki which might explain the hair thing: "Olivia and Ivy both have long dark brown hair however Olivia's tends to have some brighter highlights while Ivy's tends to have darker highlights."

Oh my gosh I love that last quote you posted too. THIS BOOK. <3