Cirque Du Freak Book 10
By Darren Shan
Genre
The genre for this book is fantasy. I know this because it's about vampires and vampaneze and those things don't exist in real life.
Author
The author is Darren Shan. I don't think he's written anything else besides this series. I have read most of the Cirque Du Freak series.
Plot
In this book, Harkat had just learned that he was Kurda Smhalt in his past life. Now the protagonists are staying at the cirque awaiting the next encounter with Steve Leonard, the lord of the vampaneze. Darren, a vampire prince, works around the cirque when they come back to his old town. While they are there, he finds out that his old friend Tommy is a professional soccer player, and is invited to the game because Tommy has to say something to him after the game. During the game, Tommy is killed and Darren goes to attack the people who slaughtered Tommy, a hook-handed half-vampaneze named R.V. and a vampet named Morgan James. As he hunts them down, he is hurt when Steve's son shoots him with an crossbow. Once Darren recovers, Vancha, also a vampire prince, helps him search for Steve to fulfill the final encounter. Once they do, Steve kills Shancus, Evera's son, in a sick, twisted, dramatic scene where Steve leads Darren back to the place they first saw the Cirque. As Darren goes to kill Steve's son, he learns that Steve's son is his nephew.
Protagonist Information
The protagonist is Darren Shan, a vampire prince who is not only trying to protect the vampire clan, but also trying to protect the world from certain death.
Antagonist
The antagonist is Steve Leonard, the vampaneze lord who's blood is laced with pure evil, and he's a power crazy villain who would stop at nothing to get revenge on Darren for "ruining his life and betraying him to join the cirque."
Main Conflict
The main conflict was the fact that Darren not only had to deal with his old life coming back and ruining him, but the fact that they could only encounter Steve one more time before he would destroy the world and the lord of shadows would arise. The only problem is, the lord of the shadows could be either Darren or Steve, so regardless of what side whens, the lord will rise and destroy the world in a sea of fire.
Problem Solver
The conflict isn't resolved in a very positive way, it's resolved in a way where Darren is taken over by anger and almost kills many people.
Important to Protagonist
"WAIT!" he yelled, breaking me out of my thoughts and stopping my actions. "Darius, tell him your last name!" "Sh-sh-shan!" the young boy trembled with fear as Steve's venom filled laughter filled the air. "You wouldn't kill your own nephew, would you?"
- This paragraph shows what Darren can and CAN'T do, even if anger and pain are filling his being.
Things Change.
- Darren went from a young boy to a man from the purge, a process in which half-vampires go through to become a full vampire
- Darren went from obeying Mr. Crepsley's dying wish, to not be consumed by anger and revenge, to wanting to kill Steve and all of the vampaneze
Theme
The theme is that evil lurks everywhere, regardless of how safe something may seem.
Life
I can understand of being so angry you do dumb things and almost ruin your life. This book makes me feel like as Darren is struggling to control his emotions, I'm getting better at controlling mine.
Recommend?
I would recommend this book to anyone that wants a fast pace action filled story that has many twists and turns. I wouldn't, however, recommend it to anyone who is afraid of blood or anything like that, seeing that there is MUCH blood and death.