I've always been fascinated by spiders. I used to collect them all the time when I was younger. I'd spend hours rooting through the dusty old shed at the bottom of our garden, hunting cobwebs for lurking eight- legged predators. These are the first sentences/quotes of the book the Cirque du Freak. Darren Shan is the main character of the book. He is also the protagonist. He is a very out going and down to earth person. He loves discussing various situations with his parents and he has a younger sister. I have been reading this book for the past week and I am really connected to him. I can feel what the characters are going through and that is such an important thing to think about when finding the right book. Personally, I think that my personality is similar to Darren's. The three most fascinating things about this book are...
1) The introduction
2) The cover
3) How the author can put in so many literary devices in such a small book (183 pages)
Let me start with the introduction. The thing I like most about the author is that he doesn't start his book with a cliché topic sentence; he starts with how the story connects to the topic sentence. It is like he has the whole plan pictured in his mind before he even starts writing it down with a pen and paper.
Then comes the cover! Below you will see a picture of the cover. On the cover, it seems very normal. There is the name of the book, and the name of the author. But there are 2 things that are really interesting on the cover. The first is the way the colours are chosen. The colours are very mysterious, very frightening. A spider and its web are not red in the real world, but on the cover, it is! The second part that I found very fascinating is the catch phrase. It says: A living nightmare.... After reading that sentence, I felt a strange sensation. It seemed like a tingle in my throat.
Last but not least, I love how the author can put so many different literary terms and archetypes in such a small book. There are some books that are over 500 pages but have no meaning, no moral, no action or suspense, but most important of all, no literary terms used. In this book, you can see many literations like when screaming, Steve, one of the secondary characters, Darren's friend, says "Ahhh!" A literation is a representation of sounds or words by means of alphabetical letters. This literation is found on page 52. Now that I have told you about the Cirque du Freak, all you people who had a hard time to find a book, one load is off your back! Now get ready for the nightmare of your life, the Cirque du Freak!
Spoiler: If you look on the cover of the book, the author is Darren Shan. But in the book, the protagonist, Darren explains that he used no ones actual name and the setting. So keep your eyes open.
