"Cirque Du Freak - Allies of the Night" - Chapters 6-10 - My Thoughts (Book 8 of 12)

With life feeling utterly impossible sometimes due to astronomical levels of crippling stress, reading these books is so relaxing it's pretty stunning. Like, it's almost laughable in a strange, positive sort of way.

Darren has experienced life in a brutal, rough way for so long that it's nice that he is getting a chance to relax and gain regular book smarts for a bit. It's pretty good for him. His interactions with Debbie are complicated which is bittersweet but better overall than ya know, tumbling down a mountain river and nearly dying in a frozen forest for example.

Bittersweet. Huh. It seems that's literally all life is. Bittersweet.

So yeah, Darren's having a rather random side quest it seems, and sort of coasting along overall. Paris Skyle passed away which is unfortunate, and so Mr. Crepsley then leaves for a bit to attend the funeral.

All this general peace, and Mr. Crepsley leaving, basically was an obvious recipe for chaos and disaster and plot twist.

Thsse chapters, and frankly the entire first half of this book, has sort of felt like a fever dream.

Now, out of nowhere, Darren runs into, of all people, Steve Leopard as he got attacked in an alleyway by a seemingly absolutely creepy vampaneze. I'm pretty sure that was R.V.

But I totally forgot Steve was reintroduced under these circumstances, by basically 'saving' Darren, which I'm pretty sure was entirely set up, ya know, a fake rescue.

I'm so glad I forgot about this plot twist. It feels good to re-experience aspects of the plot again like it's the first time reading this. That whole alley way scene was pretty intense, a lot more exciting than I remembered it being.

I'm so curious why Steve doesn't just kill Darren then and there, and why he even bothers to pretend to be an ally/good guy. Bad guys are always playing themselves man! But maybe there's some bigger reason I'm once again not recalling. I'm so curious to find out!

Also, now that I'm older and re-reading this, I'm curious to sort of take another look at Steve's character and motivations as the main villain in this series.

I think this is another obvious reason why I didn't see Steve being the main villain, The Lord of the Vampaneze, coming in the first place. Not only is Steve pretty much mostly deleted and forgotten from the series ever since book one, he's introduced as a sort of cool hero type guy at first when he does return. If I remember correctly anyway! I don't know, my memory is totally failing me apparently! I mean Steve is brought up a bit ater book one but, very rarely and very much insignificantly.

I don't know many true, central bad guys that have developed this way in the books and movies I've read. I mean, maybe that's silly. There have been lots of bad guys that pretend to be good at first, perhaps I'm over hyping that. Literally, the Scream movies are like that. But maybe that's why the Scream bad guys are so entertaining to so many!

But what Cirque Du Freak also does is, it completely forgets Steve exists completely. Which many good stories do as well.

I think I noticed a difference though. Steve was a friend at first, like for the most part. He was sort of an edgy type of friend I guess. Then, Steve was seen as an angry kid, with clear bad guy potential by the time book one concluded. Now, all the way into book eight, he seems like a guy that's maybe turned a new leaf or something. Like, the flip-flop keeps ya guessing. Which makes Steve a very tricky bad guy!!

Also I mean, just the whole journey of these books in general is so intriguing, and ya know, every good story has it's differences even when there's general similarities. To sum it all up, I just feel like Steve is a well crafted villain I guess.

Again, I'm curious to understand Steve's motivations now in this re-read. I've lived a lot more life nowadays, and I'm just ready to like, re-learn what makes him tick exactly.

Yeah. It's unfortunate I can't just grind through these books as I once did. It's partial laziness, but also I'm way more busy these days. Time is precious. But that kinda brings up another strength of these books, they're pretty short and they're pretty fast paced!

Yeah, I have a few morsels of energy in me on this particular late-Spring evening. Early morning I guess HA. I shall keep going!