In the name of efficiency, here are the twelfth and thirteenth My Sister the Vampire books, Read It and Creep and Fangs for the Memories—called Stake Out! and Double Disaster! in the UK—in one convenient review! The adventures of Olivia and Ivy continue, and I’m going to assume that you’ve read at least the reviews for the first 11 books in the series (you can find them here, here, and here). Although you don’t need to read this series in order, it helps a little.
I’m trying to keep an updated list of all the My Sister the Vampire books, along with ways you might be able to get your hands on them. You can find that here.
12.Stake Out!
13. Double Disaster! (Fangs for the Memories)
Read It and Creep (AKA Stake Out!)
I couldn’t find a picture of the cover for Read It and Creep, so here’s the UK version.
In Read It and Creep (published as Stake Out!
SPOILER ALERT: Things you might want to know before suggesting this to your kid
Secrets
The secret of vampire existence stays crucial to the setting, of course. Protecting this secret often takes precedence over other things, leading to many of the central conflicts of the series. In addition to that, with relationships strained by the transition of being together again and their bio-dad’s upcoming wedding, the girls hesitate to share certain information with each other and with the adults in their lives. In a longer book, this would get really annoying. However, these books are short enough that nothing stays secret for more than a handful of pages.
Internet Rumors
It turns out that the blogger is only trying to bring attention to a vampire-themed novel—she had no idea that people would take her seriously or that she could possibly threaten anyone. She has no idea that vampires exist, so she doesn’t realize what she’s brought down on the vampires of Franklin Grove. This provides a subtle support for the potential dangers of posting things on the Internet and how easy it is to get in over your head—a topic I know my kids are hearing a lot about from a variety of sources.
Family
Family is at the core of the series. This is perhaps the most drama Olivia and Ivy have had between them, and it feels understandable. Both are being a bit stubborn, but it never goes so far that the other people in their lives have to take sides. Their bio-dad is totally wrapped up in his upcoming wedding, but at least he understands why his parents and daughters aren’t quite as caught up in it as he is. The grandparents struggle with their disappointment that Ivy isn’t following the path they think she should, but they eventually come around without a ton of drama.
Romance
Brendan and Ivy are doing pretty well, although he’s still not quite eating properly after his run-in with the nutrition bars in Vampire School Dropout. Ivy worries about him, but doesn’t push too hard. She’s also learning to show affection and be a little sappy with him, which is a bit counter to her nature, but something he appreciates (her continuing fight against her new tendency toward sappiness is getting a bit old, though, since it’s something he wants—why does she fight it?). Jackson, now Olivia’s ex-boyfriend, starts to reenter the picture. It looks like the stage is being set for the star-crossed couple to get back together.
Recommendation
It’s a typical novel from the series, which is to say cute and a fun diversion. I feel like it’s back on track after Vampire School Dropout, which felt a bit like a misstep.
Read It and Creep by Sienna Mercer
Published in 2012 by Scholastic
Read my daughter’s copy
Fangs for the Memories (AKA Double Disaster!)
Yes, this is the only picture I could find that matched the cover of the book I read.
In Fangs for the Memories (called Double Disaster! 
SPOILER ALERT: Things you might want to know before suggesting this to your kid
Peer Pressure
Ivy deals with two different types of peer pressure—Amelia, the queen goth, clearly tells everyone how they should dress and act and who they can be friends with. Sophia suddenly puts intense pressure on herself to look the same as all the skater girls, because she wants to impress the dreamy king of the skaters. When Ivy pushes back against Sophia changing, Sophia rightly tells her that she’s acting like Amelia. That said, Sophia isn’t being true to herself, either—the transition is pretty ugly, and in the end she figures out that it was mostly a failed experiment.
Romantic Angst
Finally we see that the breakup with Jackson was hard on Olivia—it bothered me in Vampire School Dropout that the breakup wasn’t addressed in any depth at all. However, the only plot line Olivia has going at all in this book is “How do I feel about Jackson and how does he feel about me?” Since it would end quickly if she actually, you know, talked to him, it’s all mental anguish all the time. It makes her seem vapid. She’s in London for the first time ever, starring in a movie for the first time ever, and all she can think is “Oh, Jackson!” to the point where she zones out when he’s actually standing next to her talking to her! Ugh. The bright, optimistic, problem solving Olivia is replaced with a single-minded, clumsy, tongue-tied Olivia. It’s not a good trade off.
When Jackson finally tells Olivia he loves her (reminder—they’re maybe 14 years old), for some reason her computer has a message from her family playing which she ignores completely, overwhelmed by roses and cuteness. Olivia comes across as totally self-absorbed in this book.
Crushes
Sophia has her first crush on a skater named Finn and she deals with it in the most obvious and humiliating way possible. However, although his friends are pretty awful to her, Finn is a nice guy. He’s the wrong guy for her, as she finally figures out, but not because he’s horrible. He just doesn’t like her that way, and her attraction to him is superficial—she feels pressured to change who she is to try to impress him, and it’s obvious that this isn’t a healthy approach.
Recommendation
I understand the need to break the formula a bit by the time you’re into double digits of a series, but the books just don’t work as well when the twins are split up. The one left at home has people to interact with, but the one who is away is isolated and, to me at least, overly angsty and annoying. But Olivia is on her way back to Franklin Grove for Flipping Out!, and it sounds like the series will be back to its usual shenanigans.
Fangs for the Memories by Sienna Mercer
Published in 2013 by Scholastic
Read my daughter’s copy
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