Vampire Kisses 7: Love Bites [Hardcover]

Vampire kisses is a quick (emphasis on quick - I finished this one in like 3 hours)and very fun read. The Vampire Kisses series is most likely my personal guilty pleasure. I've never judged this series as hardly as I judge others, mainly because I don't take it as seriously, but on the last two installments I have found myself trying very hard not to roll my eyes with the recurring setting of each of the Vampire Kisses books. In every single installment, someone new arrives, it represents some kind of threat for Raven and Alexander,there is always some kind of Goth party involved and they always plan on transforming Dullsville into Vampireland. I love these series but I just wish Schreiber would develop more original story lines, not to mention, more interesting and not-stereotyped characters whose development is not only predictable, but also accompanied by many cheesy lines.

The romance between Raven and Alexander is what keeps the book going, but somehow, I fell that in this book the romance didn't advance or develop in any kind of way. Raven, who is a character I love, somehow seemed kind of petty and childish in this book with all her jealousies and repetitive emphasis on how nobody could get bitten before her on or how important it is that Alexander bites her without caring what it means for him, and while I have admired her on previous installments because of her confusion regarding immortality and how she had taken into account her family and everything else characters in other books normally do not even consider, she seemed to forget all that in this book and was just hellbent on becoming a vampire now. On the other hand, Alexander, who is not only my favorite characters but also the most developed and complex character in the series, really shined in this one with his mysterious yet deep humanity. He is probably the only reason why I rate this book with a 3.5, everything else kind of just fell flat. I really wanted to like Sebastian and just as had I begun to take him seriously he went as (as expected) fell for, or more accurately obsessed with Becky for no apparent reason within the first two seconds after he saw her for the first time.

The book was extremely short, perhaps the shortest in the series with a simple 179 pages. I understand that Vampire Kisses serves the purpose of being a simple, short and fun story (and perhaps that's the very same reason why I love them some much), but what begun as that is slowly falling apart and I, personally, don't want to see that happen to this series like it happened to House of Night. As far as I know, Schreiber has only and 8-book deal for Vampire Kisses and if the next one is in fact the last book (hopefully not!)I really expect much more from it and something that is more reminiscence of how Vampire Kisses begun. Oh and perhaps a slow,painful and very detailed death for Trevor, I'm just saying.

Raven Madison is not your typical teenage girl, not even by the standards of a goth girl stuck attending high school in Dullsville. For one thing, Raven's boyfriend, Alexander Sterling, happens to be a vampire --- a handsome and mysterious vampire who is a gifted artist to boot. Raven wants nothing more than to be made a vampire by Alexander, but quiet, reserved Alexander is resisting her appeals to be turned. He prefers to leave his girlfriend a mortal. Indeed, he wishes fervently that he can live a normal teenage life with her --- a life that involves such mundane things as high school and homework, and a life in which his time with her isn't limited to the darkest hours of night. His firm resistance to turning her is putting a serious damper on her plans to become one of the undead, but she is convinced that she can eventually persuade him to her way of thinking, and then they will be together forever.

Since the time that Alexander's parents returned to their native Romania, Raven has been spending nearly all her waking hours at the Mansion on Benson Hill --- Alexander's beautiful and spooky home replete with arched doorways and ceilings, rusty doors, ghoulish things, and a wine cellar equipped with centuries-old bottles of human blood. Luckily, Alexander's butler, Jameson (aka Creepy Man) tends to the Mansion and to Alexander's needs, so that Alexander can focus his time and energies on making art and on building his relationship with Raven.

One night, as Raven and Alexander steal a few moments together in their cellar love nest, a knock at the door brings a visitor --- another handsome and alluring vampire about Alexander's age. Bedecked in blond dreadlocks, tattoos and earrings, he manages to draw Raven's immediate attention. The new vampire is Sebastian, Alexander's childhood friend from Romania, who is in Dullsville for a surprise visit. Going by the size and number of pieces of luggage Sebastian has brought with him, he is intending to camp out at the Mansion for a while, a plan to which Alexander raises no objection. Sebastian settles in quickly, albeit not without a few well-aimed zingers about Alexander's strange aversion to modern amenities and luxuries.

Raven finds herself torn by Sebastian's visit. On the one hand, she finally has a chance to learn a little about Alexander's life before they met, and who better to fill her in on all the details than his childhood friend? But she is also jealous that Sebastian and Alexander get to hang out together all night, doing whatever it is vampires do, while she has to go home to catch up on sleep and other boring mortal matters.

Raven's curiosity about Sebastian turns to alarm when she finds him falling for her best friend, Becky Miller. Becky and Raven had been friends since third grade, and Becky has come through for Raven time and time again, especially since they are outsiders together at their school. Raven is convinced that the last thing Becky will want is to be turned into a vampire herself, especially since Becky is so obviously in love with her good-guy boyfriend Matt. But as Sebastian's powerful attraction to Becky threatens to cast a spell on Becky and draw her into his sphere, it begins to look like Becky might in fact become a vampire before Raven herself. Now Raven has to keep Sebastian away from Becky by any means she has available to her, while also planning and co-hosting a major party at the Mansion, promoting Alexander's gift for art and keeping nosy reporters from discovering Alexander's secret. It's a good thing our plucky heroine is up for the challenge!

LOVE BITES, the seventh installment in Ellen Schreiber's popular Vampire Kisses series, is a mild-mannered vampire fantasy novel, focusing more on the intense and romantic relationship between Alexander and Raven, with little in the way of sex or violence. Since the vampires in the story do nothing more gruesome than discreetly lick a drop or two of blood from a loved one's wound, they appear not to be particularly different from human boyfriends, albeit ones in possession of supernatural good looks. Similarly, Alexander and Raven spend much of their time pining for each other; the physical relationship depicted between them is limited to kisses and cuddles. This makes LOVE BITES very appropriate for young teens and those who are looking for a supernatural fantasy focused more on teen romance and less on gore. The book, told from Raven's point of view, has a casual, chatty and confessional tone to it, although there is not much here in the way of plot tension or complexity.

Fans of the series will enjoy spending time with their favorite characters, especially with Raven and her boyfriend, and getting to know Sebastian and, through him, more about Alexander's past.

--- Reviewed by Usha

For any Mary Sue in a vampire series, there's only one goal -- get him to turn you into a vampire too, so you can reap the benefits of eternal life, good looks, and money.

But that has yet to happen by the seventh Vampire Kisses book, wittily entitled "Love Bites." Ellen Schneider has thankfully put a damper on the constant mallgoth references, but other parts of the story haven't improved at all -- teenybopper vampires, contrived romantic angst, and a bloodsucker culture that sounds suspiciously human.

Raven and Alexander are making out in the "blood cellar" when someone arrives at the mansion -- it's Alexander's best friend from Romania, Sebastian. First, Raven gets jealous because Alexander is spending time with a guy friend instead of her, and then she's alarmed because Sebastian seems to be getting the hots for her friend Becky.

And while Raven angsts about the fact that Alexander hasn't vampirized her yet, she does whatever she can to keep Sebastian from pursuing Becky. But after Sebastian tastes Becky's blood, it fractures the friendship between him and Alexander -- and the best idea Raven has is to pair him up with somebody else.

The biggest problem with the Vampire Kisses series is that the vampires in it are basically humans with fangs -- there's no mystery, magic or allure about them, and they act exactly like the humans (down to having the same mallgoth style). In fact, if you removed the word "vampire" from "Love Bites" you'd just have a horrendously bland CW soap opera.

And unfortunately, Ellen Schreiber just cannot write romantic tension -- most of the book's drama stems from contrived angst; there's a brief time when it seems that Alexander's nature will be revealed, but it dies a quick painful death. Her writing is painfully tepid at best ("Though the Mansion was as decayed as an ancient ruin...") and filled with unintentionally hilarious moments (Ravens whines that Alexander doesn't send her cutesy text messages).

Thankfully, Raven keeps her rantings about "gothic this/that/other thing" to a minimum here, but she's still incredibly annoying and immature. She meddles with Becky's love life, dribbles incoherently after Alexander, and gets incredibly jealous of "guy time" -- what exactly is to like about her? Alexander remains a 2-D vampire lover without an ounce of menace or allure, and Sebastien is just the flirtier version.

"Love Bites" truly does bite -- it's a flaccid teen soap which just happens to have a bit of fangs and Hot Topic gothery going on. Give this one a pass, and you won't miss anything.