Lord Loss








Little, Brown and Company, 2005, 224 pp., $8.99
Darren Shan
















ISBN 0-316-11499-5


Have you ever felt like your parents are keeping a secret? Grubbs Grady begins to suspect something is wrong with his family when he overhears a conversation between his dad and sister, but he doesn't get too worried. Then it happens-Grubbs walks in to his parents room to see his parents and sisters bodies being torn apart by demons. After escaping from the house, Grubbs is placed in a mental institution, where his stories of demons are cast away as fantasy. However, when an unknown uncle tells him he believes him, Grubbs decides to return to the normal world. He begins a quest to learn why his parents and sisters died. With fellow outcast and cousin Bill-E Spleen, he learns of his families curse, and with it, just how much trouble he is in.

I think that Lord Loss is an amazing horror story because author Darren Shan also manages to throw in some other elements. There were parts were I laughed, and parts that were horrible and disgusting. However, even the grossest parts made me want to keep reading. Lord Loss is the first book of the Demonata series, and in my opinion, the fastest paced. This book is full of cliffhangers and exciting twists. The author uses a first person voice, like in his other series Cirque Du Freak, but this series has a slightly more advanced storyline.

This book is good for kids in their mid-teens, give or take a few years, but is not good at all for people who don't like blood or gore. If you liked the Cirque Du Freak books, then you will like these too, but they have much more violence. Despite the violence, the storyline is interesting, and the character relationships are very well thought out. You get to know the characters through his writing, and come to your own conclusions about the twists in their relationships. This book is an amazing representation of Shans writing skill, and I recommend it highly.