Book Review

Book Review of Darren Shan’s Lord Loss

Young Adults! Wait no longer for your daily dose of pulse-quickening horror and suspense. A compelling book…a plot full of twists, which leaves the reader hungry for more. This high praise comes from record-breaking Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, for Darren Shan, author of the Demonata series. Lord Loss is the first in the series --- a step up for readers who loved Shan’s Cirque du Freak as pre-teens, are getting into YA lit and developing a thirst for gore.

As Lord Loss begins, Grubs Grady is a nondescript teen whose most pressing challenge is his current punishment for smoking on the high school campus. After weeks of being grounded for this nasty habit, his parents, curiously, lift the penalty a few days early. Then, they drop him off at the dull home of a creaky relative and disappear to enjoy an evening at the ballet, sans son. When Grubs devilishly sneaks out that night, he discovers:

1. The ballet was just an alibi,

2. Vicious, murderous, chess-playing demons exist, and

3. He exhibits incredible strength when attacked by supernatural forces.

Grubs spends the next few months/200 pages wrestling with the repercussions of what he discovered that evening. Does he utterly destroy the demons that have just ruined his life? No. It isn’t indulging too much to reveal that the ending satiates suspense built throughout the story, but is also refreshingly realistic.