Darren Shan is a young boy of about fourteen, he enjoys his life at home and loves to hang out with his best friend Steve and watch horror movies. But one day, Steve gets tickets to a mysterious freak show that will be in town. That’s when things go scary. In Cirque du Freak, by Darren Shan, Steve tells his friends he was only able to get his hands on two tickets to the mysterious show. Darren and his friends all want to go. Darren ends up getting a ticket to the freak show along with Steve and thinks it is a dream come true. Little did Darren know his dream will become a nightmare. Darren steals a rare spider from the show and it hospitalises Steve. Darren goes back to the show and begs the owner of the spider to help Steve. The owner agrees but reveals that he is not what he seems, and issues Darren a choice he could never imagine.
Darren Shan’s Cirque du Freak is amazing, to say the least. It is one of the best books I have read in the past few years. It is captivating, macabre, and even emotional at some points. I am a huge fan of horror and this is no exception. It is excellently written and books later in this amazing series are scary enough to satisfy a horror fan like me. Darren Shan’s writing style is very unique. I don’t know what it is, but there is something about it that is different, but it works well. I love the use of first person narrative in this book. I would recommend it to anyone from sixth grade to high school due to brutal, gory fight and battle sequences. This first book in a twelve part series is as good as you will get for young adult horror. It is highly recommended by me. Five stars.