New year, a new crack at finishing this series. Quick and easy to read, interesting to feel Darren's vocabulary change as he matures. That said, I still feel cheated as I read this series. Many of these books could be combined, especially as this one felt like an exposition book without much going on. Assuming the next book has a bit more execution, I would say it should have been merged. Just frustrating, they are casually entertaining enough to read but I feel annoyed at the separation into more books.

Alltså jag blir så imponerad! Denna serie är genialisk. Blir bara bättre och bättre ju djupare i handlingen den går.

This book was mainly just a filler book. Most of the book was spent setting up the rest of the series and the conflict didn't appear until the very end of this book, but I still enjoyed this one. I feel really attached to the characters and I'm always eager to find out what happens next even in the slow parts.

I have so many questions about this series though that I hoped get answered in the next books. Here's just some of my many unanswered questions (slight spoiler warning):
-Where is that kid from the first book that was friends with Darren? I thought he wanted to hunt vampires, so I assumed he was going to come back as a villain, but he literally just disappeared. What happened to him?
-Why do they trust Mr. Tiny and how did Mr. Tiny get his powers? Is he a god?
-How does Darren still know that he has human cells after the thing that happened to him in this book? Cells are so tiny that I wouldn't think someone would know which cells are in or not in their body without testing?
-Why is the series called "Cirque du Freak" when it barely involves the cirque anymore?
-Why is a kid named Shankus? I mean it sort of answered this, but imagine meeting someone new and saying "My name is Shankus." Like no! That poor child...

I will be continuing with this series in the future and if my concussion symptoms ever go away, I want to watch the movie adaptation of this series just to make fun of how awful it is.

Following on 6 years after the events of the previous book, Darren, Mr Crepsley and Harkat are sent from Vampire Mountain to find and kill The Lord of the Vampaneze.

What I didn't like :

- This book is literally Vampire Mountain but in reverse - instead of travelling from civilisation to Vampire Mountain, we follow them returning back from the mountain to civilisation. This was one of the main problems for me - the narrative was too similar to the other book. Not only this, but the travelling was repetitive and dull, and the pacing was really off - 70% of the book is spent with the characters on the road, whilst a mere 2% is the book's climactic battle with the Vampaneze Lord. I ended up coming away really disappointed.

- There was no sense of character progression or development at all. The characters felt flat and lifeless and their dialogue felt wooden and caricature-like. and potentially warm moments between characters were skipped over, and therefore I didn't feel attached to any of these characters whatsoever.

- Female character representation is almost non-existent. The only female character to make an appearance, aside from Truska who is used as a jealousy device between the men, is Evanna. Yet, Evanna's literal raison d'etre is to make babies. No joke, this is literally why she was created. I already had problems with Shan's reasoning that there aren't many female vampires because, apparently, all women want to have babies and since male vampires are sterile, this puts them off from joining. But to have another female character reduced to her role as a child-bearer is unbelievably frustrating. It's as if Shan doesnt't realise that there are more to female characters than just their ovaries! Moreover, Evanna's character is primarily based on her appearance - she's described as being short, hairy and therefore ugly (as if the idea of ugliness is equated with these physicalities) and her only real power is to transform into a beautiful woman. WHAT ?

- Shan's obsession with the verb 'roar', is beyond grating at this point, as well as his tendency to italicize the plot twists, which can be seen coming from a mile off.

What I did like :

- The return to The Cirque - it was nice to see old characters, even though their interactions with Darren were rushed and very brief.

- Harkat's plotline - I am intrigued to find out Harkat's real story and how he came to being a little person.

Overall, I was really disappointed in this installment, and it's made me really question if I want to carry on with the series. I've given it 2 stars mainly because of nostalgia from when I used to read this books as a kid and Harkat's plotline. But otherwise, I didn't like it.

دارن شان واقعا چجوری یه همچین چیزایی به ذهنت میرسه؟؟

Six years have passed since The Vampire Prince and the vampires are at war with the vampaneze. Along comes Mr. Tiny, bearing an ominous look into the future. Darren, Mr. Crepsley, and Harkat Mulds are dispatched on a mission to do the impossible; find and kill the Lord of the vampaneze. If they should fail, the destruction of the vampire world will be on their hands.

Plot

Though I found the overall plot of Hunters of the Dusk boring, I’m glad I didn’t have to sit through the six years that Darren was stuck inside of Vampire Mountain. The short amount of time with Darren inside Vampire Mountain in The Vampire Prince was more than enough, six years honestly might have killed me. And it’s sad to say, the plot in this book was boring as the last one and didn’t pick up until the very end. The same thing happened in The Vampire Prince; the majority of the book is about preparing for something and the last part is action packed. I wasn’t as enthused to read this book since it has a same sort of feeling as The Vampire Prince. At the very least, the story is finally, finally moving forward. It’s taken many set up books but at least the end is in the horizon.

In Hunters of the Dark, after a six year time skip, Darren and the vampires are at war with the vampaneze. Mr. Tiny shows up and really gets the ball moving. This is good, but it feels forced. And then Darren & Co. go out into the world to search for the Vampaneze Lord. The majority of the book is just them travelling around; that’s where the boring part comes from.

Writing

The writing was lackluster. If a writer has to include things into their book that isn’t very thrilling, they need to be able to make it exiting anyways. I’ve said before in and earlier review of one of the books in this series that Shan doesn’t do this particularly well. Usually he just skips over these parts, but when he can’t and has to write them, the reader suffers. His writing is still good, I’d probably never say it wasn’t, but when he’s not introducing new things or writing action scenes, Shan’s writing isn’t very engaging.

Characters

I feel very odd about Darren. He’s mentally around twenty-five, I believe, yet he still thinks rather foolishly. The scene where he’s going through the Purge is the best example I’ve seen. He’s actually talking to his reflection like a toddler; not like a child but more like a baby. I don’t know if Shan wrote that part for laughs or what but it wasn’t all that funny. We know Darren is smarter than that so I don’t know why that scene was dragged out for more than a second where Darren should have been startled at first but then quickly realized that it was his reflection.

We have two reoccurring characters: Mr. Crepsley and Harkat Mulds. Even though Darren is supposed to have a close relationship with the two of them, once again, it’s not really shown. It’s not like Shan doesn’t know how to write friendships, he did it easily with Darren’s friendship between Steve, Evra, and Sam. I guess because they are more adult characters.

And we meet a new main character, the missing Prince Vancha March. The first few chapters with Vancha made me not really like him. He was obnoxious and it feels like his personality was played up too much. I can see the potential in him and liked him a bit close to the end of the book.

Things I Didn't Like

My biggest problem with Hunters of the Dusk was how boring it was. It was just dull. I hope the action picks up again the next book, because it’ll be difficult going through five more books like this. There’s not much more to say about that.

The other problem I had with the book was how I noticed the female characters are treated. There are six women total in the Cirque du Freak series thus far that have at least one line of dialogue and names. They are Mrs. Shan, Mrs. Leonard, Mrs. Hemlock, Debbie, Arra Sails, and Evanna (who is introduced in this book). The first three women have no other roles except to be mothers for a short period of time. Debbie and Arra Sails are both love interests, Arra of which who is killed to incite man-pain in Mr. Crepsley. Evanna, we are told, was created so that vampires could have babies with her. IF a vampire wants to have a baby, she is the only person who can carry it. This is a terrible ensemble of female characters. Yes, Arra and Evanna are powerful in their own right but Arra was defeated and killed and Evanna is was literally created just to be a vampire baby-maker! Why are there no good, well-rounded female characters that actually have some purpose to the story?

Diversity

Evanna is a woman who is introduced to the reader. She is strong and powerful but the way her existence is explained is a bit problematic. And there’s honestly not all that much of her in the book to be seen. Other than that, no other diverse characters come to mind.

Overall

If I had to describe Hunters of the Dark with one word, it would probably be “forced”. The plot is forced forward by Mr. Tiny. The writing feels forced. This books just wasn’t enjoyable to me. This is another bridge book and there are already too many in this series for me to be sympathetic towards it.

Here is a link to my notes.

This book was a little boring but I'm glad Darren got to go through vampire puberty and get his hair back!

The most enjoyable of the last few books, this is the beginning of a new “trilogy” within the series. We come back to the Cirque and revisit some old favorite characters, meet some new ones.

Gotta say, we were pretty excited to see the return of the pirate costume. It was the best of all his weird clothing choices, by far.

(4.5) this was a hard book to rate. There was a time it seemed like a four star and times it was a five star, but overall I rated it a 4.5. One thing I liked about this instillation of the series is the time jump between this one and the last and the growth that Darren has had since we first met him in the first novel. I like that we get to see him maturing into a full-blooded vampire.

The reread continues!
This is another very... set-up-y(?) book? It picks up after a time skip and the plot is very light, most of it is filling in the reader, establishing new characters and concepts, expanding on the world and so on. This is great on a first read, but having read these books a solid handful of times now it doesn't really do much for me anymore. It's good stuff, but there's nothing else there to keep my attention. Except Vancha, who is one of my favourite characters. He's so gross I love him.

This book in the series is very much focused around the larger plot related to the twelve books. Whilst some of the previous books were focused more upon Darren’s experiences this one brings us back to the war which is going on.

After being visited by a character from one of the past books, our main characters find themselves at the Cirque once again. Here events are not quite what they once seemed, with questionable motives in the air. Our characters find out that completing the mission that they are upon isn’t quite as straight forward as it may seem.

Still enjoying this series. the storyline is interesting and unexpected. If you have read previous books and enjoyed them I definitely recommend that you keep going in the series. I will be!