Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Vampire Prince by Darren Shan

4 reviews

uhhlexiconic's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Part survival, part war story, the Vampire Prince has the unenviable task of wrapping up the trilogy that should perhaps be one book. The ways the narrative stretches to make a book out of this last third create for some boring stretches. Still, Darren's reaction to his first taste of war and the complicated way this book approaches its antagonist make for an overall engaging read. 

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bookswithlauren's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

There are twelve books in the Cirque du Freak series by Darren Shan and I read my way through all of them in about three weeks as a child! I absolutely loved them and was totally immersed in the world created by Darren Shan from the get go. October is just the perfect time to re-read them all! Especially when I have access to all the audio books.

This series is everything I remember. Creepy, full of gore and suspense, leaving you wanting more! All the characters are incredibly unique and developed. The story as a whole is different from comparison novels and you can tell with each book that there is much more of a story to come. Shan has written the books whilst planning ahead. Small details that suggest further meaning crop up later in the series and it is sheer genius and talent.

There is gore, which I enjoyed immensely. Also, some humour thrown in so it wasn't completely gross and disgusting all the time. It was a nice way to break things up so it didn't feel dark and bleak every step of the way. I was lucky enough to meet the author at Edinburgh Book Festival in 2019 and every sentence on every page of these books oozes his personality, humour and fantastic mind! You are completely immersed into the world of Darren Shan, Mr Crepsley and all the other vampires with just a few sentences.

I think this series will forever be a favourite of mine! Especially during the spooky season! This book in particular is like the vampire version of the Hunger Games and I love it!

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

THE VAMPIRE PRINCE forces Darren to decide whether to flee for his life, or return to warn the vampires and face punishment for his failure. 

I was pleasantly surprised by how much new worldbuilding occurs in this book, especially this far into the series and as the finale of a discrete arc. We learn much more about the wolves near the mountain, and later on get much more information related to the Vampaneze and their motivations. 

It wraps up some very major things which were left hanging from the previous two books. It has a new storyline which was set up by the ending of the last book. It resolves a lot of stuff, but I don’t think anything major was both introduced and resolved here. It’s definitely part three of three for a mini-arc within the series as a whole. The ending changes the status quo in a way that has very interesting implications for what could happen next. Darren is still the narrator, and his tone is gradually maturing as he’s changed by what happens and how he processes these experiences. 

The prologue does a good job of serving as a reminder of prior events for anyone who waited a while between books, but the last good entry point was definitely VAMPIRE MOUNTAIN. This technically could stand on its own and make sense in terms of the main plot, but the ending specifically resolves things from the last two books in a way that makes them necessary for the ending to be emotionally satisfying.

The plot focuses on Darren’s escape, rehabilitation, and then return to the mountain. It has a good balance between calm and action, with Darren taking some time to recover before attempting to warn the vampires about what he discovered at the end of the last book. I like how focused it is, how this completes a trilogy within the series. Darren has been changed by his recent experiences, and he gets time for self reflection here which helps those changes become explicit rather than remaining as slow shifts in the narration. The ending is devastating, filled with grief in a way that's more complicated and on a grander scale than in THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT. This series has followed Darren as he slowly learns that things overall can become profoundly worse at the same time that little things improve. He's growing up in a way that the earlier books hadn't forced him to yet, but his specific growth here is built on everything that came before. 

I love this one, it's so important for the direction of the series as well as being an excellent story in its own right.

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lucys_library's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

3.0


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