Cirque du Freak: A Living Nightmare (Cirque du Freak, #1)

A very good read and a ridiculously quick one, as well. Good plot, realistic characters (no caractures or type-casts), and good imagery well-balanced with normal dialogue (no freakish adult-like dialogue for the children, but not overly simplified either...aside from Annie who seems unrealistically

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precocious). Perfect for upper middle school or lower high school, though thoroughly enjoyable even for older audiences. I was a bit annoyed with the over-use of italics, but at least the editor did a good job (unlike many of the other books I have read recently).

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I read this book from the library and I liked it but I didn't love it bcoz I thought it was childish but when I read it's other parts my views changed and now I think that it is a fantastic story.I haven't read all of its parts.Right now I am on the fifth part.

Think Goosebumps, but older kind of thing. Well, maybe, I can't actually remember if I've read any Goosebumps... This is the story about a kid who goes to see a REAL freak show, and falls in love with this trained spider this one guy has. Ew. So he decides to steal it. And keep it as his pet. Ew.

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Well, he ends up losing control of it one night, and it bites his friend. So then he has to go back to the owner, who turns out to be a vampire, (and has been lurking around town after the freak show left so he could get his spider back), to get the antidote. They make a pact, you be my blood slave, I'll give you the antidote. And so ends the first book. Rather creepy, not really my kind of story. I do not like spiders. ick.

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What's better than a boy and his love affair with a spider? Darren has all the normal problems of a kid in school...teachers that don't listen, a sister that never minds her own business, and a deep aching desire to own something that belongs to another: a spider. The spider starts the ball really

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rolling as Darren has to make some serious choices that will affect the rest of his life. Maybe stealing from vampires is a bad idea?

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An interesting application of the Vampire to the YA genre. The author warns the reader that bad things will happen. The price of vampirism is a theme of this series.
Released to my sister.

It is a interesting book. This part of the series tells how Darren was blooded by Larton Crepsly and became a half-vampire. I want to suggest this book to people who likes monsters, or creatures.

The first book in a twelve-book series. This certainly isn't the writing of Pullman or Rowling, but there are some nice original ideas in there. A quick, entertaining read for an adult, good enough that I immediately went out and bought the other 11 books.

I liked this book alot i thought it was good for young readers like myself . In the begining it had some mystique but as i went along the story obviously developed and i became oblivious to everything else and was engulfed in the book its definitely a good thriller and although it has some

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interesting ideas in it like the horror intrigue . I definitely connected with the characters easily so i definitely give this a thumbs up

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Darren, is a typical, curious teen who loves soccer, his family, and friends. When he and a friend win a ticket to see a very secretive "circus of freaks" late one night, hidden on the outskirts of town, strange and hiddeous happenings occur that changes their friendship and lives. This first book

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in a series will keep the reader captivated to at the turn of each page. A great read for reclutant readers. A spooky thriller not for the easily rattled.

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Love it! If you enjoyed Harry Potter, you'll like this series as much or even more.

I first read Cirque Du Freak when I was in 8th grade. I became obsessed from the start; I ended up finishing it in about a day and a half. Cirque Du Freak is about a young boy (Darren Shan) who gets sucked in to a world of vampires. The Author illustrates scenes with vibrant detail; I felt as

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though a movie was playing in my head. It is full of weird and awesome characters and creatures.

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This is a YA story, so it’s not going to be the vampire horror story you expect. There’s no vampire lust and limited blood here. Darren is a young boy who does young boy things... he plays soccer at lunch-time, he gets into trouble with his best friend, he covets a pet more than anything

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else... Until he has to make a more adult decision. His life, or his friend’s? I thought it was a good story (despite being a little heavy with exclamation points), and I’m going to read at least the next couple of books in the series to see where it goes.

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The book is about Darren Shan, a little kid about 10 years old becoming a vampire. It starts out with him and some friends discovering a traveling circus of freaks, and wanting to see the show. They see it and then one of his friends notices that one of the freaks a spider charmer, is an actual

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vampire. At the end of the show he confronts him and asks the vampire to turn him into a vampire. The vampire says he can't because his blood is bad and he is evil. His friend runs off and swears to kill the vampire. Darren sees this then gets him turned into a vampire. He fakes his death so no suspicion would arise when he runs away with the vampire. He is now a hunter of the night and that is the end of the book. I think the book is really good for pre-teens because it is very easy to read and there are not much big words. Also it's good for kids because its short, roughly 200 pages long. It is a good book with a lot of action so it is not very boring. I like how in the beginning all of the little details really tie into each other and it makes a lot of sense when you get into the end. Like in the beginning how all the friends go to the circus, in the end of the book they meet up with circus again. I really liked this book, and I really recommend others reading it too.

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I think this book is magnificent! A young kid named Darren is blooded into a vampire by Mr. Crepsley and must face the difficulties of the vampire way. He struggles to understand the ways of a vampire, but soon learns not to ask so many questions. The book has many twists to it, I have had many

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late nights trying to finish one whole book in one night. I read it for homework, at first I thought it was going to be a drag. Now I WANT to read more! This is one of the best books I've read so far! 10 out of 10!

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Decent series for kids. Better written than R. L. Stine's stuff and gory enough to keep boys interested.

First book of the Cirque Du Freak series about a half prince on the journey to destroy the vampeneze. A horrible out cast of once vampires. This is where you meet Darren. He is turned into a half vampire and now travels with Mr. Crespley.

I have, at last, a guilty pleasure. Mr. Shan is a master at precisely telling an unbelievable tale. My favorite of the summer. Darren reluctantly becomes part-vampire, taking his place as assistant to the director of a macabre circus freak show. It’s the place his dangerous former friend wanted,

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and he’s vowed to hunt them down. I wish I could plow right through the next 11 in the series.

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This is the first book in the series. While the premise might be good, some of the execution could have been better. There is a lot of heady description of grotesque and wild supernatural things, but there are also a few non sequitur plot devices. Otherwise it's slightly entertaining as a story,

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probably appealing to young males for the depictions of spiders, monsters, and danger, but not having any more lasting impact than strongly flavored bubblegum.

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I'll comment here for the series. Overall very good. My son got me interested - he's 15. They are short but if you can get them all they are worth reading. Vampire Mountain was the only disappointing one as nothing really happened. Very good imagination by the author and the final books race along.

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I would recommend them.

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This book was pretty good! Except since I saw the movie before I read the book, I couldn't concentrate too much on the book, and kept thinking of the movie! So much was different! I can't believe they would actually change so much for the movie! But to tell you the truth, I don't really like Darren

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Shan's style of writing. Everything goes too fast for me, and I can't really remember all of the details. He was trying to cramp all the facts in a short little book, and it just isn't working! But I can't wait to read the next book, but I saw it in the movie too, so I hope it's better than this one! Oh yea, I hate how Darren Shan made himself as the main character. To me, it's just not right. It's really....weird, and when I write, I never even mention my name, or my friends. So it's sort of creepy to see the author use his own name!

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I liked this book. It was short and simple and sweet. It made me cringe though, as Darren has a fondness for spiders as I love my cats and spiders aren't exactly my favorite insect in the world. There's a nice underlying creepiness throughout the book which I enjoyed as it kept me focused and my

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attention did not wander off. It was extremely fast paced and the book was far from boring. There were a few revelations and some parts where I thought sounded so predictable, actually surprised me as it didn't go the way I thought it would. Although I rather figured Steve would go the way he would, but if he didn't, the book wouldn't have ended as it has and it wouldn't have been as exciting.

I like Steve though, he's fearless and he's got a reckless streak that you can immediately identify as him being the one bringing all the trouble (not on purpose) but it's him that keeps the plot flowing and making it exciting. Although Darren is the main character, if it weren't for Steve in many aspects of the story, the plot would have stayed flat. I like Darren for his loyalty, although it didn't do much good anyway.

There's a great cliffhanger ending, and now I'm left wanting to read some more. It's certainly a great start to the series and will keep readers interested and engrossed as to what will happen next to these two boys. The only thing I thought was a little odd was sometimes the boys talked like adults so at times it just didn't sound so real, although I'm willing to let it go. The book was good enough that you can just ignore that little error.

Overall, a wonderful start to an interesting series. It gives freak shows a whole new meaning of creepiness and with a cliffhanger ending, you're bound to swallow this series up like candy.

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Cirque Du Freak it a very interesting book by Darren Shan. It is about a teenage boy who goes to this freak show with his best friend. During the show his best friend notices one of the performers as an ancient vampire named Mr. Crepsley. After the show his friend tried to convince the vampire to

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bite him and turn him into a vampire as well. Mr. Crepsley attempts to but says that he has bad blood and can not be a vampire. Darren decides to steal Mr. Crepsley's spider from his coffin and took it home. After a couple of days Darren and his friend were playing with the spider and it bit Darren's friend and they had to take him to the hospital. There was no cure or the spiders venom becuase he was a unique spider. Darren had no other choice but to talk to mr crepsley and ask him to cure his friend. He said he would if Darren agreed to become his assistant which meant that he would become a.......half-vampire! (darren agreed)

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this book is amazing it is full of thrill. tHIS BOOK is for people who like things that are wierd things. This book got into reading all of the series. I can tell you that if you like two kids that one loves doing things wroung while the other is a wuss. you will ove it.

It was very enjoyable but I thought the initial development was a bit long then there was a lot of action near the end. Still, I look forward to the next in the series.