The Darren Shan saga by Darren Shan
Also known as The Cirque du Freak
The cirque du freak is actually a series of twelve books. They follow the adventures of the main character also named Darren Shan, as he becomes a vampire, lives with the mysterious circus, fights evil vampires, travels to the vampire clan, fights for his rites, fights big evils, and learns truths both about himself and the world in general.
Book one involves Darren and his friend sneaking into a circus, where a vampire is one of the acts. Darren steals a very special spider, and this one act of defiance forever changes his life.
Book two involves Darren become a vampire himself, and becoming the assistant to Mr. Crepsley
Book three involves traveling to confront an evil vampire in Mr. Crepsley's hometown
Book four involves travel to meet the vampire clans
Book five involves Darren's trials in becoming an initiated vampire
Book six involves sussing out a traitor
Book seven involves the search for the Lord of the evil vampires
Book eight involves travel and meeting of past friends in search of help
Book nine involves a showdown
Book ten involves side journey involving one of the "little people"
Book eleven involves learning the truth about the past and connections between characters
Book twelve involves the final fight.
The books are fast reads, each only being a few hundred pages long, and definitely written in a child-like prose. They're story is simple but with enough twists and turns to maintain the reader's interest. Darren's character starts out a shy awkward kid but grows into a capable and even heroic 'adult'. His relationships with the other characters are complex and interesting, especially with his "maker". I recommend reading the books in a row because characters pop back up later and it is helpful if the events of the earlier books are still fresh in your mind.
This is how a circus story should be. All of the characters are interesting and have depth. One of Darren's best friends is a snake boy, there is a bearded lady, and small "little people" who are odd and do extremely odd things. Though the story is childish, and hardly a literary masterpiece it is enjoyable on many levels. It was fast paced, and for a series of twelve books in had few down moments. All in all a very enjoyable read.
Side note a movie has been made. It is sort of a smooshed up version of the first few books
The movie was a huge disappointment, I believe part of the problem is that it was several books in one movie. Now I understand that that would have been necessary based on how short the books were, but they seemed to arbitrarily takes plot points from several of the books, putting parts from much later books in this first movie. They also added a monkey girl character that did not exist in the books, and the added love interest just seemed forced to me. There does not seem to be any plans to make more movies.
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