Cirque Du Freak: A Living Nightmare- Avital Avraham

Avital Avraham

November 12, 2008

Ms. Huff Period 2

Book Review Blog

For this book report, I chose to read and write about Cirque Du Freak: A Living Nightmare by Darren Shan. During the summer, every single one of my friends had been talking about it and told me "I had to read it". I begged my mom to buy it for me and she did but I never bothered to read it. One day I saw it on my bookshelf and decided I would and once I read the first chapter, I knew I was hooked.

The main characters in this story were Darren Shan, Steve Leonard, and Mr. Larten Crepsley or also known as Vur Horston. Darren Shan was an average boy. He had a mother, a father, and a sister, Annie. He loved his life and everyone in it. He played soccer and had many friends. Steve Leonard was one of Darren's best friends and they knew everything about each other… or so they thought. Steve never really liked his parents, or even his life for that matter. He felt like he didn't belong or fit in but he always knew he had Darren. One day, at school, Steve brought a flier and admitted to steeling it from his older brother. It was of an illegal freak show and they decided to sneak out and go after both their families had gone to sleep. After seeing a couple of performers, it wasn't as exciting were hoping for. Then, after seeing Mr. Crepsley's act, they were amazed but Steve's expression was not of astonishment but of curiousness. After the show was over, Steve told Darren that he had recognized him from a book he had read… about vampires. To Darren's surprise, Steve goes up to Mr. Crepsley and asks to be made into a vampire. With hesitation, he agrees but after only half way through the process, he senses evil in Steve's blood, stopped, and refused to do anything more and Steve was outraged. But Darren, who returns to the theater again, steals Madame Octa, the spider. That same spider bites Steve and infects him with her poison, the poison that only Mr. Crepsley has the antidote for. But at what cost for Darren?? Will he be willing to sacrifice everything to save his friend??

"The freak show was all I could think about that night. I tried forgetting it, but couldn't, not even when I was watching my favorite TV shows. It sounded so weird: a snake-boy, a wolf-man, a performing spider. I was especially excited by the spider.…"

This quote, I feel, is important because it describes in detail what the freak show was going to be like. If I saw a flier with all of this interesting information on it, I would do anything to go. It also showed Darren's excitement. He obviously wanted to go and couldn't wait. He was excited about the spider the most because ever since he was a child, he had a bizarre obsession of them and the "…" shows something spooky was going to happen including the spider.

My rating system is from the range of one to five. One being the worst and five being the best. I have used spiders as my icon because the main character, Darren, loved spiders. It was also Madame Octa, the spiders, fault that Steve got infected with poison. I gave this book 5 "spiders" because the book was very good because it was appropriate for my age group. Most books I read are either are too complicated to understand or too boring because they were written for younger kids. This book was perfect for me.

There are many reasons why I absolutely loved this book. One of them being that it was so interesting and I couldn't take my eyes off the page. It grabs you and pulls you into the story and you feel like you're in it. You feel their pain, their joy, and absolute hatred they have towards others. Another reason being that I personally love mystery stories and this is definitely a mystery story. You never know what is going to come next. This is a nice quality to have in a book because it keeps you wondering what surprises are going to come up next. Lastly, this book is not the only one. The author, Darren Shan, has written 12 books in the Cirque Du Freak saga and I cant wait to read them all. The book was written for anyone 10 or older because at times, its can get a little confusing but in then end, everything makes perfect sense. There is no foul language, drug usage, or anything inappropriate for children. This book is very additive to me and I, the child who hates reading and would do anything to avoid books, read 150 pages of this book in one day. That should give you an idea of what an amazing draw this book had to me and would have to you if you chose to read it.