Cirque Du Freak #1: A Living Nightmare: Book 1 in the Saga of Darren Shan… (edition 2004)

I decided to read this book because I watched the movie and wanted to see how the book was.
Enter Darren Shan-a typical teenager with friends and a normal family who finds himself thrust into his destiny. In a desparate attempt to save his friend, he embarks onto a macabre journey into another world. the world of cirque De Freak.
A story of friendship in unlikely places with a touch of the macrabe to spice up your reading pleasure.
This was an easy read as it is Young Adult and I was able to finish quickly.
I would recommend this for kids 12 and up who like a little scare but not enough to cause nightmares.

( )

My dear friend Hecate forced book two of this series on me to read. She loved them so much she demanded I read it to so, per her request, I borrowed the first book from the library.

As a creepy young adult book, I was not let down. This book made me shudder, gag, stare wide eyed at the pages and yell at the character for the stupid decisions he made. While the character made stupid decisions and life choices I did like the book a lot. The writing style is fluid and easy to read. The descriptions were well done and the creepy factor was spot on.

I would have loved this series when I was younger. If your kid or younger relative is into creepy and paranormal stories I would recommend this series to them. Though they may have nightmares for a while.

WARNING: do not read this book alone and late at night. ( )

It was a little different from what I was expecting, but it was pretty good. Compared to the movie, the book is definitely better. Darren can be a little annoying at times. He is more of a good boy than I like. Steve on the other hand is one of my favorites. The Cirque characters are interesting. They made the Cirque one of my favorite scenes. Can't wait to read the next one. ( )

I have been looking forward to reading this book for forever. I have read so many great reviews, and it was even endorsed by my favorite author, JK Rowling. I was truly expecting to love every moment of the book. But I was not prepared for the lack of entertainment I found in this book. I am not sorry I read it, just sorry the book didn't live up to my expectations.

This book is about Darren, a boy who seems to have a decent heart - Kind of. He and his friends seem pretty normal for young boys. They play soccer, hate school, and are interested in the weird and macabre. Pretty normal stuff. Then Darren and his best friend Steve get into a freak show, and their lives change forever when a spider and a vampire are introduced into their lives.

The characterizations in this book were very inconsistent. In one passage, it seemed these main characters should be in their teens, in other scenes they seemed no older than maybe 6th graders. No real description was ever given about any of them. I understand that the author was "protecting" the identity of everyone int he book because it was a "real" story, but some descriptions of the characters would have been nice - as well as some character traits that stayed with them throughout the entire book.
(possible spoilers to follow)
There are several key things in this book that bug me. One - nothing was ever explained as to how the Tall Man knew so much about these boys when they first entered the show. It was like this whole thing was planned from the beginning, but even Mr Crepsley admitted that he hadn't considered anything special about Darren until after he had stolen the spider...so there is one major inconsistency.

Two - apparently, Steve is evil. We are told so, but NOTHING in the book before this was mentioned showed us that Steve was anything more than a normal boy. So we are all just supposed to believe that this kid is evil on the word of a vampire - who we are also just TOLD is not evil. UGH.

Three - Like I said before, the characterizations of the boys just don't fit.

Four - There are some MAJOR errors in the editing. I know I don't have an original copy, so why were some of these more than obvious issues not corrected in later issues?

Five - They had to fake Darren's death (this is a two part complaint on my part) because if they don't, they will never be free because his family will never stop looking for him. Great, I get that. But the vamp describes how he is going to snap his neck. But that won't kill him because it is only deadly when the spinal cords are severed, usually in the break. BUT he breaks Darren's neck and THEN throws him out the window? SERIOUSLY?? He has a broken neck, and he throws him down to the ground from an upstairs window. No worries about severing the cords there... THEN the doctors pronounce him dead and have him buried. The vamp talks about worry of an autopsy...which the author clearly thinks children should understand, but there was NO embalming process? What was that too much for the kids? But this was described as a pretty gruesome horror story... Guess the kids don't need to know about that or any of the other parts of burying a body? OH GEEZ...

It just got worse and worse as I read. I wouldn't have finished this book, except that there are so many lately that I haven't finished because I was disappointed in them, that I figured, this was a quick enough read and I would just grin and bear it. I thought I would get a slightly scary story, but the Series of Unfortunate Events was much more bang for my buck on the creepiness scale, and at least if things didn't make sense in that series, that's because it wasn't supposed to. That whole series was over the top on purpose. This one was over the top and it seems mostly by accident because the author didn't really pay much attention to details, or is not giving his audience nearly enough credit. Overall 2 and 1/2 stars. ( )

This is a great reluctant reader choice for boys - especially for those reading a a lower level. Those reading at a higher level could get frustrated ( )