Darren Shan is an ordinary boy with an obsession with spiders who’s also considered to be a soccer genius in his school. But then Darren’s best friend Steve gets two tickets for Cirque du Freak. The show will change their lives forever. Steve is very excited because he is very interested in vampires, ghosts and other superficial beings. Darren is a bit more apprehensive. It sounded really scary: Wolf man, rhamus twobellies, snake boy and the bearded lady are a few of the acts which you can see in Cirque du freak. The boys arrive and go in.
Darren is nervous and Steve is jumpy because of the setting in the broken down theatre. The feeling of fear was very apparent in the theatre even before the show. What happened in the show that was so life changing you ask? Read this book and your questions will be answered.

The author has a wacky imagination to say the least. The story is good but very strange, and I would not recommend this book for a bedtime story — the more light the better. It is hard to categorise. This was a book written for boys but I still enjoyed it. This was an interesting read and I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

Rating: 9/10

http://ted.examiner.ie/archives/2000/may/12/current/bookspage_39.htm