Cirque Du Freak

I've been meaning to read this book for a few years now. I wish I had read this book sooner. It was scary and interesting and funny and full of dramatic tension and basically has everything I could ever want in a book. Plus J.K. Rowling (my hero!!) liked it.

Summary: Darren Shan is just a normal boy who is tricked by fate. He goes to a freak show (The Cirque Du Freak) with his best friend Steve, who recognizes one of the performer's as a vampire! Darren ends up stealing the magnificent spider that belongs to the vampire. However, it ends up biting Steve and Darren is faced with a choice: Become a vampire and leave everything he has ever known or let his best friend die.

Other: This book is real. I mean that in the sense that there are compelling choices and it doesn't abide by the rule that everything needs to work out happy in the end. Life's not like that and neither is the book. That's what the author says in the beginning, and that's what you realize at the end.

Favorite Parts:
1. All the chapters where Darren and Steve are at the freak show. The descriptions are amazingly entertaining. It almost makes me wish I was there. Almost.
2. When Darren shows Madame Octa (the spider) to Steve for the first time.
**Spoiler**
3. When Darren is overcome with blood lust and drinks his friends blood after he falls and scrapes his knee. Then he shouts "I am the vampire king" and all his friends take it as a sick joke.
**Spoiler**
4. When Darren fakes his own death and his Dad cries over his body--I was sobbing. My roommate thought I was crazy.