A Living Nightmare by Darren Shan. Cirque du Freak series #1. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, April, 2001. 9780316603409. (own.)
#tbt features A Living Nightmare by Darren Shan. This is book one of the twelve book, Cirque du Freak series. It was originally published in the U.K. in 2000 and subsequently published in the U.S. in 2001. It is the first-person, "true" story of Darren Shan, who along with his friend Steven, wins a ticket to an illegal freak show. Steven wants to become a vampire, Darren is fascinated by the giant trained poisonous spider. Both of their lives change when Darren decides to steal the spider. The book was adapted for film in 2009. If you like horror, you will enjoy this series.
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black. Unabridged audiobook on 10 compact discs, 12 hours. Read by Christine Lakin. Hachette Audio, September, 2013. 9781478924692. (Purchased)
Tana awakens in the bathtub the morning after a wild party at which she downed a few too many shots. The house is eerily quiet. This is because it is filled with corpses. Apparently, the party was crashed by marauding vampires and somehow, Tana escaped notice having been passed out in the aforementioned bathtub. She needs to leave. Quickly. As she searches for her stuff, she discovers her ex-boyfriend tied to a bed and a chained vampire near him. Her relationship with Aiden, the ex, is complicated and, while he has been bitten and surely infected, she cannot bring herself to leave him behind. Her relationship with Gavriel, the chained vampire is about to become very complicated since she saves him as well. From what? Apparently, there are an unknown number of vampires waiting for the sun to set to kill Gavriel.
Tana has no choice other than to load them up in her car and head to the nearest Coldtown, a walled off city where humans, possibly infected humans and vampires live quarantined from the rest of the population.
No sparkly, stalkerish vampires here (thank goodness). This is purely predator and prey, violence and blood and gore. That a romance could arise in such an unforgiving atmosphere is testament to Holly Black's storytelling. Through the narration by her kick-ass heroine, Black paints a wholly believable, terrifying world. The performance by Christine Lakin is pitch perfect. She gives Tana that slightly monotonous, tough girl tone, a charming accent to Gavriel, and an appropriately bad-boy whine/cajole to Aiden. Other characters receive individual voices as well. I was so totally swept up by this story that I actually hoped for traffic since I was listening to it in my car. And it was one where I frequently lingered in my driveway to listen longer.
Had I been reading this with my eyes, I might have swallowed it in one big gulp. Reading with my ears, while excruciating because I couldn't hurry up the narration, allowed me to appreciate the worldbuilding, setting and character development in a way I might not have had I barreled on reading with my eyes.
This is a new favorite and one I will recommend to my more mature, thoughtful readers.
