The First book is still my Favorite but This one was enjoyable as well

7.71 on CAWPILE

2 1/4 stars

The Vampire assistant
Author: Darren Shan

"For a long time that's all I could do, howl and scream and cry like the wild animal of the night that I'd become."

Darren's life is changed forever after he decides to work as the assistant to the vampire Mr. Crepsley in exchange for a favor that would completely change his future...

Becoming a vampire's assistant is not something you do overnight. Darren must say goodbye to his human life for good. He will permanently change into a half vampire and in time he will transform into a full vampire.

The history of the vampires is very extensive. They have an enemy clan called the Vampanese who cause quite a stir. In this part they are added to the storyline and in the later parts more and more gets revealed about their way of thinking and history.

There is so much going on in this volume. The world of vampires is expanded and the author adds a large cast of new characters that are all very diverse and original.

There are a number of elements in the storyline that can be experienced as shocking by young children. I read online that the series can be read from 9/11 years and older, but I do not completely agree with that.

Trigger warnings:
Body horror (limbs being torn off), Blood (ritual), spider, ilness, coma, near death experience, violence, murder, grief

3.8/5
I started this book but I never got through it. I thought the first bit of the book was a bit weird idk it didn’t make me want to keep reading
Oh also I think I just Remembered but didn’t they drink a dead pet cats blood or something

This is another great book in the series, continuing on well from the first and leaving you wanting to read more.

Once again the book is filled with great characters, with a storyline that keeps you hooked from the start until the end. We move forward with Darren’s story, following on from when he was turned into a vampire and moved away from his home. More ideas are opened up in this one, pulling you deeper into the universe that you grow to love over the twelve books.

I still remember how friggin traumatic this book was as a teenager. Now it didn’t have such huge effect, but I mean, knowing what would happen certainly makes it less intense.

I wanted to punch Darren a lot which I also don’t remember wanting to do back then, but he is a fifteen-year-old kid after all, so who am I to judge.

This book brings us to a whole new stage in Darren's life. I found it engaging to find out how he coped with all the changes he went through. Without his family, his friends, his home, his school, he basically lost everything he knew. But once he became a half-vampire he also gained new abilities, that improved his strength, endurance, sight and hearing, and slowed down his aging process by 1/5. Just as he was predicted by mr. Crepsley, who compelled him to make the transition.

Now you may ask, why did this vampire want him for his assistant so badly? Well, I'm still wondering the same thing. Cause it's a question that never really gets answered. While you would expect this man to spend an awful lot of time with Darren, in order to make certain use of him, he hardly gives him the time of day. Or night for that matter, since we're talking about a vampire. Darren seems more of a burden to him if anything. As if he were his unwanted stepson, with whom he got stuck after the mother died or something. Just as I was questioning Darren's motives in the first book, I was questioning mr. Crepsley's in this one. It simply didn't seem to make much sense.

Whatever his motives may be, because of this man Darren ends up living in a traveling circus, where he makes friends with Evra, a snake boy, and Sam, a boy who comes from a hippie background and lives in a house nearby their camp. Together the three get into new adventures with some thrilling turns. Where the first book was dark, this one gets even darker. Which I would point out as a good thing.

Unfortunately, the animal cruelty also goes a step further. Besides goats, we find new victims among cats, dogs and foxes. Like I stated in my review of the first book, that is not something I like reading about. However, I can accept it being a part of the story, and Darren is simply not the kind of person who shares my morals. In his mind apparently, it is more cruel to drink human blood, even though he can do it without killing his prey, than to slash animals of whom he has to drink all the blood in order for it to take effect. But than again, that's quite how other meat eaters live their lives, so it probably won't sound as strange to most of you out there.

In conclusion, for me this book had similar likes and similar dislikes as the first one, and once again I had my fun with it.

It a great sequel to cirque du freak and is one if the best books in the series, will lot of exciting moments that eave you on the edge.

Darren is not liking being a half vampire and is finding it lonely. So they go back to the Cirque du Freak where he makes friends with a snake boy and a local boy. Obviously, things aren't that straightforward. There's some good character-based plot here, and it moves along very quickly. Darren is becoming a likeable character. A good read.

I didn't know what to read next, even though Blood Song was already on my currently reading list, so I decided to rearrange a part of my bookshelf. I noticed book 3 lying around with a couple of other random books. I then had a slight feeling of wanting to continue on with the series. I heard nothing but great things, but book 1 managed to disappoint me. Setting the bad past experience of book 1 aside, I decided to read the book 2 and decide after if I would finish the series or not. Despite the 3 star rating I gave this, I have to admit that I can't wait to finish all of the books in the series.

This can be considered one of those YA-horror books that you should've read when you were actually a young-adult. I'm turning 20 this year, so I didn't find anything creepy about this novel. What I liked though would be the coming-of-age feeling it had. I like reading about an adventure of a kid growing up, so this series might be the thing to read, and hopefully resurrect the YA genre for me. I've given up on the genre way too long ago, but I still try to read a few of them once in a while and see if something floats my boat. This is one of those boat floaters, and I'm glad I continued on.

This second novel was way superior to the first one. All introductions aside, it was a great novel of adventure. The writing was okay for me, it didn't have any major issue so I don't have much to complain about. The plot was also consistent, and the latter parts had a good amount of action. I liked reading about how the main character had to make important life decisions. Hopefully he grows older in the next novels, because I would like to see the possible development of the main character.

While reading this, I remembered an episode from Fairly Odd Parents wherein Timmy Turner joined the circus for a day, but ended up missing his family so he decided to go home. This series seems like that at first, but the main character didn't go back, he became a full member of the circus. I would love to read more about his adventures with Cirque Du Freak, and thankfully there are 10 more books in the series.

3/5 stars. Nothing spectacular, but it's one of the few YA series that managed to catch my attention. I'm sure the author has more tricks up his sleeves in the next novels.

It is surprisingly gory for a childrens series, and I am quite surprised to see some adult hidden meanings that I'm sure children wouldn't know (mushrooms).

I found this one to be better than the first book.The ending is actually rather sad. I give it four stars still as I didn't feel so attached to the character introduced in this book enough for the ending to be really impactful. Though, it is, of course, a series for a young audience, and the books are relatively short.

Spoilers:
Still, I was really rooting for Sam to make it out alive. He seemed like he would really fit in with the circus, would have loved to see him become vampire too.