One of my favourite books (Cirque du Freak - Darren Shan)

Member Name: 09jbooth

Product:	Cirque du Freak - Darren Shan
Date:	24/06/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well thoguht out story, great plot, once read you are hungry for more.

Disadvantages: none

Darren Shan in cirque du freak writes himself as the main character of the story. The Darren Shan saga has over ten books that all follow the same boy and all follow each other. Cirque du freak is the first of these books and inroduces you to the characters and the story.

Basic outline of the book

The basic story of cirque du freak revovles around a boy called Darren. Darren is pretty normal guy, he is nothing out of the ordinary except for a wierd love of spiders. He has a nice close family. He has a good group of mates which are like normal teenage boys. His best mate is called Stave Leonard.

The main part of the story starts when him and steve buy a pair of tickets to cirque du freak. Cirque du freak is a circus with freaks in. So there are things like wolf-man, a boy that has snake skin and aman with two bellies for example. But the thing with Cirque du frreak is that all of the performers are real. By real I mean they actually are what they say they are. So wolf man is half wolf and half man.

One of the acts, Mr Crepsley and his performing spider. Is recognized by Steve. Steve recognizes Mr crepsley from a book he read. He remembered that Mr Crepsley was infact a vampire. Steve and Darren were both capitavited by the act. Steve cause he recognized the vampire and Darren because of the spider. This spider though wasn't a ordianry spider, it was a massive spider that did cool things. Such as climbing in and out of Mr crepsleys mouth.

After the show Steve decided to wait behind and talk to the vampire. Darren still didn't now about the vampire and Steve never told him he just told him to go home. Darren though snuck up to the top balcony and watched what was going on. Steve and Mr Crepsley talked and steve wanted to be his assistant. Mr Crepsley agreed but after testing Steves blood he declined. He said that Steve was evil and had evil in his blood. Steve stormed off in an angry rage.

Over the next couple of days Darren couldn't get the spider out of his head. He fascinated about it, he craved so he decided to steal it. He thought he got away with it but the vampire new about it the whole time. Darren decided to show steve the spider but the spider got angry and bit steve. The poinson the spider had was not recognized by any doctor. Darren new deep down that the only way of saving steve was to go and ask mr crepsley if there was any way of saving steve.

Luckily when darren asked mr crepsley said there was an antidote and darren could have it. There was a catch though, he could have the antidote only if he became the vampires assistant. Darren eventually agreed and he became the vampires assistant and steve was alive.

It soon be came apparent though that even thoguh Darren was only a half vampire he couldn't be around his family and friends as it was too dangerous for them. So Mr crepsley and darren decided to fake his own death. They did so and got away. But not before steve swore revenge on darren and the vampire. Steve felt that darren told mr crepsley to say his blood was evil which of course was a lie.

My thoughts.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It captivated me from the beginning. I liked it that much I decided to get the set and believe me they are great. Good thing with them are that a teenager can read them and an adult can read them and be enjoyed by both.

Before I read this I had never heard of Darren Shan as an author but he is a fantastic author that really knows how to captivate a reader. The book is written really well.

Great start to a epic saga I give it a 10 out of 10. :-)

Summary: What a great book, one of my favourites.