CIRQUE DU FREAK: A LIVING NIGHTMARE

Shan, Darren. 2001. CIRQUE DU FREAK: A LIVING NIGHTMARE. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2001.

In CIRQUE DU FREAK, Darren and his friend Steve manage to get tickets to a genuine freak show, complete with contortionist sisters, a woman who can grow and then retract her beard at will, a snakeboy, and a man name Mr. Crepsley that can control his performing spider with a flute. While the show is extremely entertaining, and somewhat terrifying, to the boys, it’s not until Mr. Crepsley and his spider Madame Octa perform that things take a turn for the unbelievable. Because Steve recognizes him for whom he really is—a vampire. And Darren, well he’s just interested in the spider, an obsession of his since he was little. He learns the hard way that you should never, ever, steal a vampire’s spider.

CIRQUE DU FREAK was good. It was interesting. It was fast-paced, easy to read, and because it’s on the shorter side, length-wise, it was a fast read. However, for a reason I can’t quite put my finger on, it wasn’t a great novel to me, and I’ll likely not be picking up the sequels any time soon. Perhaps it was because of a lack of in-depth characterization, which can sometimes be a downfall of shorter novels. I always felt that Darren Shan (the character, not the author) was a little one dimensional, as were the rest of the characters in the book. I felt no emotional connection to the characters, even after Steve was bitten by Madame Octa and faced certain death. There was a slight lag in the beginning before the action picked up, as also noticed by this reviewer: “The slowness of the plot in the beginning might turn some readers off, but once the supernatural enters, they will be hooked” (Capeheart).

That being said, the novel itself WAS entertaining and certainly held my attention. I don’t regret reading it at all, and may one day read the sequels, but they won’t be at the top of my To Be Read list. I would recommend it to fantasy lovers, grades five and up.

Reference List:

Capeheart, Timothy. 2001. Review of Cirque Du Freak: A Living Nightmare, by Darren Shan. School Library Journal.