Alright, where to begin? I read this entire series when I was about 12 years old and to this day, it still retains a place in my top five favorites. The author, Darren Shan, lives in Ireland. Darren Shan writes horror stories and in addition to the Cirque Du Freak series, he’s also got a prequel to the books called, The Saga of Larten Crepsley. I’ll touch more on that later.
The Plot:
Darren Shan writes himself as the main character in this story, and the character Darren, claims that this is not his real name, that everything in the entire series is true, except for names. One fateful day, one of Darren’s friends shows up with a flier about a traveling Circus group that would be in town for the next few days. Darren and his friends, Alan, Tommy, and Steve decide that they all want to go see this “Freak Show”, mainly because none of the adults seem to approve of them. The four pool together their money to buy the tickets, and Steve volunteers to sneak out and buy them. when Steve returns to school the next day, the other three learn that Steve could only buy two tickets, the reason being they only allowed two to be sold per flier. Everyone agrees that Steve should get one of the tickets, as he put in the most money and also went to buy the tickets. After that, the friends have no idea how to decide who should get the other ticket. Eventually, they leave it up to fate to decide, throwing the ticket into the air with other scraps of paper. Whoever manages to catch the ticket, gets to go to the show. Of course, Darren caches it and he and his best friend go together. This one instance would change both boys’ lives forever. In a twist of events, Darren must make a deal with a vampire to save his friend’s life, becoming a half vampire and the assistant to an ancient circus performer, Larten Crepsley.
I’ve already said it, but I seriously love this book, as well as the eleven other books in the Cirque Du Freak series. Now, it is geared more toward younger readers, I read this when I was about eleven or twelve, but it’s entertaining nonetheless. If you have kids, this would be a great book to get them! This series is actually what really got me into reading and I’ve probably written about twenty reports on it for English. Now, I did a “no-no” and actually watched the movie based on the series before I actually read the books. Before you judge me let me just say that I had absolutely no idea that the books existed and it just sounded like a good movie. I won;t get to much into what I thought about the movie adaptation, but I will say that the ending sucked and when I found out there was a book series, I decided to ind out how it really ended.
The books are shorter than what a lot of you are probably used to, but again they are geared toward younger readers. That being said, if you decide to read this book to your children or buy it for them, be warned that it does get a bit gory from time to time. not Texas Chainsaw Massacre gory, but there is killing. The first book, my copy at least, has about 257 pages and also includes the first few chapters of the next book, Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant. In case you’re wondering, my copy has the cover image shown above, and it’s also very beat up. Again, I was young and naive, I wasn;t as invested in books back then as I am now and I let it topple around in my backpack.
Okay, I mentioned at the beginning that Darren Shan has also written a prequel to the series called The Saga of Larten Crepsley. At first, I wasn’t a huge fan of Larten Crepsley, but believe me when I tell you that he grows on you very quickly. In fact, he’s probably one of my favorite characters. So obviously, when I found out that Darren Shan was writing a series specifically about him, I was ecstatic! It’s an amazing series, though it only has four books. Another great thing about it is that you get to see more of the characters that you only meet briefly in the Cirque Du Freak series.
Alright, that’s about it for this one I suppose, give it a try and I think you’ll really love it! Happy reading everyone!
Sincerely,
Maddison C. Jones
In My Opinion 
by the way lovely I have your copy of this book. love this book as well