The Saga of Larten Crepsley: Birth of a Killer is, what I assume to be, the first book in Darren Shan's prequel series to his Cirque du Freak series. Before he was ever a vampire, Larten Crepsley (Darren's vampire master in Cirque du Freak) was just another child factory worker in the 1800's in just another dirt-poor family with too many mouths to feed. But after the factory supervisor flies off the handle and kills Larten's cousin, Larten retaliates in kind, flees for his life, and meets Seba--a vampire General. From there, Larten's life spirals onto a new path as a fellow child of the night.
Darren Shan is one of my favorite authors because of his ability to suck me into the reading flow. To memory, he's only written one book which seemed to drag on for me; otherwise, all of his books have been very quick reads with rare interruptions. At first I intended on reading a couple of chapters, but soon hours few by, and I was half-way through the novel. My reading strategy for Shan's books tends to be visualization, and in this case, I also made several textual connections between this prequel and his earlier Cirque du Freak series. I had a couple of practical questions at the start of the book that I thought I could search and answer or answer right there, so I tried rereading certain spots, but the answers didn't seem to be concrete. Then again, this copy I'm reading is an ARC, so maybe that's why. Then again again, maybe not; Shan tends to have vague descriptions for certain plot-irrelevant elements.
Shan, D. (2010). The saga of Larten Crepsley: Birth of a killer. New York, NY: Little, Brown Company.
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