I adore the humour in this novel, it’s lighthearted, it doesn’t take away from the stress/pain of what the characters are going through, and it’s got the perfect balance of soft moments & hard moments. There’s a specific point at the end of the book that devastated me, but the humour really lifted things up, but didn’t take away the fact that something horrific just happened, it eases you into a sense of feeling safe, like you can breathe.

But I also started in such fast, brutal style because I didn't want to upset my readers too much! It might sound strange, but I really do think a lot about what I put in my books, and I try not to throw in gratuitous violence which will revolt more sensitive readers. Normally I'd have developed the relationships between Grubbs and his family, and given them several chapters together -- like the way I sketched in the details of Darren's home life in "Cirque Du Freak." But I didn't want readers to get too attached to these characters, because I knew that would make it more upsetting when they had their unfortunate run-in with Lord Loss. So, by not spending too much time on Grubbs' family, I hopefully lessened the blow of what happened to them. I went in thinking it was going to have no connection to the first book at all and was very excited to see familiar characters, but in a different time... Which made me feel as though I read the wrong book first! That feeling soon went away though.

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I stop laughing instantly - a mouthful of rotten rat guts wasn't part of the grand ��ber-joke! "Get off!" I roar, lashing out wildly. Mum and Dad suddenly recover and shout at exactly the same time. The family skips town(reason, as always, unspecified) and settles into a village. All's well until Kernel meets Mrs.Egin, a bitchy witch. She blabbers stuff about some demon thief and goes bonkers. What was fascinating about this book was the full-fledged magic. Each had their own brand and seeing it being explored always excited the kid in me. The story held a few twists and surprises along the way, especially with the decision of a disciple, a revelation of a theif (although I guessed that right before it was revealed), and how life changes as it goes on without someone. I believe that if i start saying a little bit more about this book i will spoil all the surprises, because from the beginning it starts with some weird things happening that let you guessing what is going on, and you start discovering what it is all about, what is the truth that lies behind, and why some things happened, and it all starts from the very beginning. So for your own enjoyment if you're considering to read this, i won't say anything about the plot.

I'm not going to leave her alone with Mum and Dad to face whatever trouble they're in. Like I told myself earlier - we're a family. Dad's always said families should pull together and fight as a team. I want to be part of this - even though I don't know what 'this' is, even though Mum and Dad did all they could to keep me out of 'this', even though 'this' terrifies me senseless. Is breakfast a fry-up or some cereally, yoghurty crap?" is my response, and I know the second it's out of my mouth that it's the wrong thing to say. This isn't the time for the famed Grubbs Grady brand of cutting-edge humour. And he is bald, gosh, no wonder girls don't like him too much, but those bitches would stand in line for him if they read this book Demon Thief book two of the Demonata by Darren Shan is a as good as book one Lord Loss but maybe with a more enjoyable story. I really liked the world and the characters that Shan created in book one of the Demonata. In the Demon Thief, Darren Shan makes a bold choice to set this book 30 years in the past to the events that take place in Lord Loss. Not only is it a prequel it is not really about Grubbs, or his family, but Uncle Dervish does have a role.Lord Loss is a young adult book, so it’s got all the YA stuff that you’d expect—Grubbs trying to fit into his new school, making friends, struggling with the trauma of what happened to him. There are problems with the book, Darren Shan struggles in places to write dialogue for a young teenager, for instance, but I found myself overlooking these issues. That’s in large to the characters and the world that he created. Grubbs Grady - on his way out? A deadly disease I caught on holiday? A brain defect I've had since birth? The big, bad cancer bug? Although I struggled with character descriptions, for example not really knowing Kernel's age or what he looked like much and the harsh way characters like Raz was described, I thought the storyline Shan went for in this second novel was really interesting and unique and left me more emotional than I was ever expecting to be. Especially when the demon thief was revealed! She deserved it!" I cry. "She's done worse to me! She told Mum about me smoking - I know it was her! And remember the time she melted my lead soldiers? And cut up my comics? And - "

This series had a pretty good ending that was in keeping with the brutal tone throughout while also managing to be optimistic…Which was nice after 10 books of demonic dismemberment. Okay so I read this series about 5 years ago now and don’t remember a lot of it really well. I sat down to write up a few lines about it after seeing that a friend was reading it but as I did I kept remembering cool plot points/characters that I felt obligated to mention. Anyway I remember reading this series when I was about 13/14 and really liking it (all of the disembowelling helped :D). Note: This is marketed as Young Adult but… it isn’t. At least it’s not what you’d normally expect from the genre. You should really not let your kids read this if they’re under, say, 12 and probably older still. I’ve legits never read a book/series with more detailed descriptions of scenes of horrific violence and gore. This review will cover the whole series however I’ll try to keep any important plot points from later books in spoiler tags. I loved Darren Shan's Cirque Du Freak series (I mean, seriously, almost literally drooled over waiting for each edition of those books...) so set myself the goal of reading his other series as well. This sounded the more interesting, so this is the one I've started with. Scum!" she shrieks. Then she lunges at me sharply, grabs my jaw, jerks my mouth open and tries her hardest to stuff a handful of rat guts down my throat.AND PLEASE DONT READ THIS BOOK IF YOU HAVE EXTRAORDINARY IMAGINATION SKILLS AND HATE A MASSASCRE OF A FAMILY