Twin Tryst: My Sister the Vampire: Switched by Sienna Mercer

Olivia Abbott is new in town, and, wearing her best pink skirt and a determinedly perky smile, enters her new middle school to begin eighth grade. Unlike her previous school on the coast, this one is old and ivy-covered, with dark, high-ceilinged halls and dusty black-and-white photos lining the walls. There seem to be a lot more Goth kids here, too, so many that Olivia feels "like a lollipop in a graveyard" among the black-clad students. Still, a pale Goth girl named Ivy gives her friendly directions to the office, and Olivia is happy to find herself in several classes with the strangely familiar-looking girl.

It is only when Ivy and Olivia see themselves together in a mirror in the girls' room that they realize that they look alike. In fact, they are as identical as twins. When they start asking questions, they discover that they are both adopted, have the same birthday and birthplace, and wear identical dark emerald rings from their real parents. Olivia and Ivy are sure they are real twins and can't resist the fun of switching identities. Using makeup to blend their different skin tones and exchanging eye makeup, Ivy pretends to be a bouncy cheerleader wannabe and Olivia becomes a gloomy Goth. "What better way is there for sisters to get to know each other than to be each other?" says Olivia.

While Ivy as Olivia has a power lunch with snooty pep captain Charlotte Brown and the other cheerleaders, Olivia, dressed as Ivy, meets up with Brendan, the boy Ivy has had a secret crush on for years. While the well-coached Ivy, costumed as Olivia, is replying "Re-e-a-a-lly?" to every remark at lunch, the friendly Olivia, as Ivy, meets and accepts a date with Brandon at the mall on Saturday. True to the twin-switch cliche', Ivy turns out to have an important meeting to plan the All Hallow's Eve party on Saturday, and the two decide that Olivia will have to pretend to be Ivy at the meeting so that the real Ivy can have her first date with Brandon.

When Olivia discovers that Ivy and her pale Goth friends are really vampires, new complications arise for the long-lost twins. In standard "double trouble" style, the two now-devoted sisters work through a series of comic complications, switching identities whenever necessary to make sure that Olivia makes the cheerleading squad and Ivy goes to the All Hallows Ball with Brendan by the end of the novel.

This spoof on twin pranks and teenage vampires is light and in good fun (no biting for these tame vampires--just rare hamburgers now and then), and the vampy identity switch makes for an, er, fangciful switch on the usual middle school BF story. My Sister the Vampire #1: Switched (My Sister the Vampire) is followed by sequels My Sister the Vampire #2: Fangtastic (My Sister the Vampire), My Sister the Vampire #3: Re-Vamped (My Sister the Vampire), and My Sister the Vampire #4: Vampalicious (My Sister the Vampire).