Back in 2014, I reviewed the book series, movie and manga of Cirque Du Freak by Darren Shan. Five years later, and I can’t believe I haven’t touched upon his followup series Demonata. So for my little Halloween marathon, I’m reviewing the series.
Grubbs Grady is just a normal teenager who day his parents drop him off to his aunt unceremoniously. Sneaking out to go back home, he finds his parents and sister were doing some kind of weird ritual that resulted in them being brutally killed. There’s also a demon named Lord Loss who apparently brutally killed. This results in a Grubbs being thrown into an ancient war between the Grady family and demons.
You thought Cirque Du Freak was messed up, you ain’t seen anything yet. This series piles on the gore and the body by the THOUSANDS! Besides that, this storyline is actually better than Cirque Du Freak. Don’t get me wrong. I loved Cirque Du Freak, but this series feels a lot better written.
The characters, the stakes, the lore, the enemies and even the ending work better here. Remember how I hated the ending to Cirque Du Freak? Well, this one for me is much better. Yes, some people will see it as a cop, but if you remember all the details and who Grubbs and the other two main characters are (not going to spoil the other two because they arrive later) you’ll see that it’s an appropriate ending.
I have to talk about the original hardcover covers of this series. While some are ok, some are amazing. The best ones are Bec (now THAT is a creepy cave) Death’s Shadow and especially Hell’s Heroes. It’s a skull that has the three main leads making up the skull. Now that is some great artwork. The paperback covers, on the other hand, are generic. They went from amazing and creepy to basic YA covers. Why? I understand needing new covers for new editions but they couldn’t do similar ideas like the hardcovers?
Darren Shan followed up Cirque Du Freak with a series that is the better of the two big series from him. While Cirque Du Freak was great, Demonata shows that Shan has improved with his writing especially with the ending.
Categories: Novels
Tags: Darren Shan, Demonata, Demonata Series
Sanrock Reviews 