This is an older series and many of you may have read it years ago or already decided it wasn't for you, but maybe my review will sway you into giving it a chance (or just make you remember how much you loved it.)

Here's my take on things:

Be prepared for a male author with all male main characters. There's a younger sister character with a small part and I enjoyed the siblings' relationship, but aside from her and a few mothers, this is mostly a series about boys. Did that bother me? Not at all. Just pointing it out.

Lots of gore, which I enjoyed immensely. Also, some deadpan humor thrown in so it wasn't completely gross and disgusting all the time. It was a nice way to break things up so it didn't feel dark and bleak every step of the way.

The story is short and intense and doesn't contain a lot of filler. I can see how this might get compared to the Goosebumps series because those were quick reads too, though I'd say this series is for a slightly older audience, but if these had been around when I was 10 or so, I would've gobbled them up.

Not a whole lot of surprises, you can kind of see where things are heading early on, but the few surprises that are included are pretty big ones. There's also a scene in the beginning that doesn't get explained and I'm curious to see where things go with that. I love that Shan obviously planned this as a series but still wrote a full book. Things are left open-ended, but there's not really a cliffhanger and I appreciated that.

This is a short gory book with a slightly new twist on the vampire mythos geared heavily towards male readers (though I think girls won't feel alienated at all) and the inclusion of a "freak show" is something fascinating and I welcomed reading about a topic done to death (heh) that ended up still feeling unique. I really liked it and already have the next book loaded up on my Kindle (though I'm trying really hard not to start it tonight ... must ... wake up ... early ...)

I can see how this series is so popular now and hope the quality continues with each subsequent book. Also, if you liked this book and this series, definitely check out his other unrelated series, The Demonata; I really loved the first book and I can tell you that reading A Living Nightmare after Lord Loss that his writing only gets better.

It's really neat to watch an author progress and continue to improve and also clearly enjoy his work. There are not a lot of authors writing stories like Shan's and I think it fills a nice pocket that fans of the Goosebumps series can stick their hand into once they start getting older. I definitely would've been one of them and I can't wait to dive deeper into the rest of his series.

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Just a quick fun read. Nothing complicated, nothing fancy. Perfect book for tweens and young teens.

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To read my review of the other books in this series, use the links below:

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n      Book Two: The Vampire's Assistant
t Book Three: Tunnels of Blood
t Book Four: Vampire Mountain
t Book Five: Trials of Death
t Book Six: The Vampire Prince
t Book Seven: Hunters of the Dusk
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Buku ini sudah lama ada di rak buku, tapi baru tersentuh karena penasaran (ada teman yang sangat suka dengan Darren Shan >_<

Ceritanya kejam, jahat, dan mengerikan! Benar-benar kisah vampir yang sesungguhnya. Yang paling menyayat hati adalah kelanjutan persahabatan Darren dengan ketiga sahabatnya, terutama Steve :'(

Pokoknya, baca sendiri deh! Mau review panjang tapi takut spoiler..

tA Living Nightmare by Darren Shan is the first book in the Cirque Du Freak series. It tells the story about a boy name Darren and how his life will forever change when he and his friend Steve decides to go to a freak show called Cirque Du Freak. At the show Darren and his friend witness different ‘freaks’ performing and one of them being Larten Crepsley, a vampire and his giant spider, Madame Octa. The moment Darren saw the spider he knew he wanted to bring it home with him to play with it. Then one thing lead to another. Darren finds out that Steve wants to be a vampires assistant. But soon after he gets bitten by Madam Octa and the only way to save Steve is to give him an antidote that only Mr. Crepsley has. But Darren can only get it if he becomes Mr. Crepsley vampire assistant. So will Darren choose to save his friend? Or himself?
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I actually like this book. Normally I don’t like reading books that have too much violent and sort of scary stuff , but I really liked how Shan made this vampire book so much more different than the typical vampire books right now like Twilight or Blue Bloods. It’s much more frightening but still so addicting. I recommend this book to fans of vampire books because this book shows a new way of looking at vampires. A more chilling view.

Also on Here are 15 books that are so good that people wish they could relive reading them again for the first time: https://www.buzzfeed.com/elizabeth_co...

Giving this a 4.5Stars

I wish so much I had read this when I was yournger. Such a cool story and so many good messages as well. I also appretiate the fact that things are not sugar coated and it seems so intense even if it is a middle grade.

So excited I decided to start this series.

Not bad! I liked it so far

Warning: I am keeping this review on the vague side because Shan's books are more fun if you don't know what's going on before you read them.

Well, this was a very interesting book. I didn't really like the idea of the freak show, but I did think that it was a novel way to introduce this story, and a different sort of motif for a children's series. I've seen this series at the bookstore for years now, and waffled about reading it. The freak show concept turned me off. I am just not into it, I must admit. I don't even like circuses (I went to a few as young child, but they are scary and sad to me). For some reason, This kind of reminded me of The Traveling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon, but these stories unfold quite differently, and the latter is not a children's book by any stretch.

A Living Nightmare is definitely written for a target audience of older children and younger teens. At some times, the writing seemed a bit juvenile. I feel bad for saying that. I think it's because I read Lord Loss first, which was about a teenager, but I feel was written in a way that seemed more mature and advanced enough that an adult reader didn't even notice that it was for children. I can't blame Mr. Shan for targeting a younger audience, if I chose to read a children's book. So I am not trying to sound judgmental or snooty. It was merely an observation on my part.

The beginning is very sound, and sets you up to hold your breath to see how 'Darren Shan' manages to get on the path that he is walking in life (or afterlife I should say). The descriptions of the freak show are somewhat interesting, but it's not something I find that exciting. Yet there are eerie moments that caught my imagination as I waited to see what would happen next.

'Darren Shan,' which is a psuedonym, (Since this is written as a boy telling his story, there is a foreword that states that all the character's names are made up to protect the real life people) is a protagonist that you can feel for. He is just a boy, not evil, and not super-good either, and he makes some bad decisions that come back to haunt him. He doesn't always own up to his faults, but in the end, he makes a choice that I admired for its maturity. In fact, the repercussions of this choice actually made me cry. It just struck me as pretty awful what has to happen in order for things to work out for Darren's family. I was really impressed that Darren Shan (the author) was fearless enough to incorporate this aspect into a children's book.

The look at vampire lore had a life of its own. It had some familiar conventions, but the manner in which a person becomes a vampire was something I haven't read anything like before. That part was pretty cool, and some of the mechanism of vampirism and how they apply to Darren's situation specifically.

I thought Darren had a very good relationship with his family, and I really liked how he was so close and loving with his younger sister, Annie. It was sweet how they got along so well and loved and watched out for each other. Darren has a complicated relationship with his best friend, Steve, who is a very troubled boy, and a catalyst for the events that occur in this book. This relationship will continue in the later books with some twists that I look forward to reading.

I decided to give this book four stars because it's a good book and it was fun and involving. There were scenes where I gasped out loud. I was waiting for dinner and I actually groaned on a part that was pretty shocking and outrageous. The guy standing across the way from where I was sitting looked at me and smiled. I smiled back sheepishly before I was quickly immersed back into this story. That said, I must admit that, had read I this before Lord Loss, I would really be cheering. But Lord Loss set me up for higher standards that this one didn't quite meet. However, I can see children and some adults who like eerie, yet fun little vampire suspense tales targeted towards older children, really getting a kick out this story. I definitely want to continue the series to see what happens to Darren, because this story is just getting started.

I have to agree with my sister: this writing is terrible. But I’ve also read worse. So, I may continue sometime in the future, but who knows?

This book is interesting in some ways because at first I thought that this book was going to be boring, but I also think that you cant judge a book by its cover. So I thought I should actually pay attention when I heard that Allan found the flyer for the Cirque Du Freak show.

The flyer for the freak show included the information where to get the tickets and where to go to watch the freak show but there was only two tickets were allowed to be purchased. Darren's best friends are Tony, Allan, and Steve. When Steve Leonard seen the flyer he wanted to go straight away. But Darren, on the other hand had a different thought about it, he didn’t feel like going because he was scared or had a bad feeling. I would be scared too if I were him, because if I were to go somewhere illegal and if I weren't allowed to go to it then that would be risky.

Allan, Tony, and Darren agreed that Steve should go. But then they had a hard time figuring out who else to go so they cut pieces of paper and put the ticket in with them so that they could throw it in the air and see who catches it. Darren had a crazy idea to stand there with his eyes closed and put his hand out waiting for the ticket to come to him. On the other hand Allan and Tony were grabbing as much papers as they can. Until the papers were all on the ground and Darren had the ticket. This took me by surprise. I mean he was just standing there. Not only me that took by surprise it took Tony and Allan by surprise too.

Darren had only one huge interest of the freaks by Madam Octa. At first he was indicated to wolf man and the other acts. But then when he seen the Madam Octa which is the biggest spider in the world he wanted to stay and watch. Of course he had a thing for spiders.

At first when Mr.Tall warned the audience, if you get scared easy then you should go. Darren thought about it at first, but then he didn’t want to act weak in front of Steve so he decided to stay.

After the show Steve told Darren to meet him outside but Darren didn’t listen because of course Steve sounded suspicious. As a result, he stayed and went on the balcony without Steve knowing and watched Steve go on the stage to look for something or should I say someone.

When Steve was on the stage Mr. Crepsly appeared onto the stage. Steve knew he was a vampire because of all the stuff he knows about vampires from reading comics. Darren couldn’t read or watch much of scary stuff like movies, comics, and books because of his parents.

The book made me really think about what would happen after that happened Steve left and Darren would be able to escape or not. When Steve asked if he could be a vampire, Mr. Crepsly told him he had bad blood in him. This made me wonder what would happen in the end of the book? Well there are a lot you can predict and it wouldn't or would happen.

This book has a lot of plot twists but after that happened I thought it is the biggest plot twist. But then Darren leaves and runs back home. The next plot twist is when he stole Madam Octa. I mean it makes sense, he has a thing for spiders, so I kind of figured that would happen when Mr. Crepsley and Madam Octa preformed in the freak show.

What is the biggest plot twist in the book? you may ask. Well the biggest plot twist is when Steve is in the hospital when he got bit from Madam Octa. And the only way to save Steve is making Darren Shan The Vampires Assistant.

I would recommend reading the rest of the books.

Even though this series is obviously meant for young people, I (currently age 32) found many aspects of this book to be enjoyable and entertaining. It was really dark -- I was honestly surprised at how dark it went considering it IS for young adults. There were a couple of moments where I laughed out loud, too. I am definitely going to read the rest of the series because I'm curious to see where the plot goes.

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