Book review: Darren Shan

This is actually a post from more than a year ago, but I just realized I hadn't posted it, so here it is!

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I’ve just finished reading the book series Darren Shan Cirque du Freak, and tears were literally running down my face. And I’m not one to often react strongly (at least not physically) to books even though I love reading. 

I used to read a lot when I was younger, and loved when teachers read stories to us in middle school (even though many other students complained). I’d stopped reading for years when life got in the way, as seemed to be the same for most of my friends who grew up reading a lot. I’d recently (like within the past year) only gotten back into it because I can read books on and have a whole library stored right on my phone! Yay technology! I’d been able to reread and finished series that I’d started and never gotten all the books for when I was younger, like Pretty Little Liars, and I finally read all of the Harry Potter books.

Darren Shan is not something I would chose to read on my own. My preferred genres are usually along the lines of young adult, dystopian futures, fantasy, and guilty-pleasure romances, along with some light novels and manga, like Tora Dora and Spice and Wolf. My husband, when I’d told him I’d really been getting into reading again, had been pestering me to read Darren Shan. It is popular enough that it had even been translated into Japanese (and many other languages). I was reading the Spice and Wolf light novel because I watched some of the anime years ago and loved it but never finished it. I finally caught up to the most recent one because surprisingly it’s still going on! On a whim, I finally decided to start reading the Darren Shan saga I’d downloaded to my phone a while ago.

It was NOT the right one…there’s another series by the same author and it started out…GRUESOMELY. I started reading it an early morning before I had to get ready for work, and after one chapter, I hated it. I don’t like horror, though I can handle some violence, if it’s for the greater good in my stories. I told him I hated it and already felt like I would have nightmares! It disgusted me (although I still can’t help to mention the fact that I was a little bit intrigued and tempted to read on). But then he asked me if I’d met Steve…well, I don’t want to give anything away 🤫 but that novel definitely was not the one he’d intended to recommend to me!

Anyway, it’s 12 books long and I started reading about a week ago and now finished, and I’m so glad I’m at home in a bath crying over this book, instead of on the train coming home from, or going to work! There were some points that were a tad…Grotesque…and hopelessly sad, but it was worth it in the end. I don’t even know why I was crying, but I couldn’t stop. It got me thinking about hope, destiny, and how much power we have with each choice we make in life.