"Anna Dressed in Blood" by Kendare Blake (J1)

Just... No.

Anna Dressed in Blood

By Kendare Blake

# Pgs: 320

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Overview:



Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

Yet she spares Cas's life.

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Review:

... This book was stupid. I didn't really see the point to it. I mean, to be fair, it was a lot better than I thought that it was going to be. And it was really interesting how the author pulled all of this information together about ghosts and ghost hunting stuff that I, personally, have never read about before like this.

It was a cool idea. You know, a fifty-something year old psychotically murderous dead girl with a tragic life/after life that falls in love with a single minded murderous ghost hunter. Great creativity with creating all of these ghosts...

However, a bunch of aspects about this book were left unexplained or had such a weak, unbelieveable foundation that I didn't get it. How is it that Anna, admittedly a powerful ghost, can touch Cas in the first place? Why doesn't she kill him if she can't help murdering everyone? Where in the world would Cas have learned to fight before if his dad didn't teach him and one day he just decided to take up his father's mantle?

Another problem I had with this book revolved around the fact that Anna and Cas were supposed to be in love, yet their relationship together was dull and uninteresting. It was likewise confusing. When Cas is thinking of her, there was nothing in his thoughts that even hinted that he liked her. No compliments, nothing about her that he liked. Just sympathy for the way that she died, constant thoughts about how to kill her with the athame, and constantly blaming her for all the random deaths. And does it bother anyone else that despite being stuck in death as a sixteen or so year old girl, she died about fifty years prior to this? Maybe it wouldn't bother me so much if there was actually some kind of chemistry between them or some kind of developed story to it...

Nearly everything about this story fell through. The love between Cas and Anna was nearly nonexistant except for some kissing (which, how is that possible?) near the end. The plot line sucked. Cas was obnoxiously singular minded to the point where, since the POV was always on him, everything seemed almost repetitive. It was annoying. Another problem that I had with this book stemmed from the fact that all of the other complications that popped up in the book, that made it all the more interesting, died off indirectly from the main character quite suddenly. One minute it was like there was one thing interesting going on that maybe would add some spice to the book, the next it's like "oh. they're dead." There was no foreshadowing to it or hints or something that would make it somewhat suspenseful. I didn't feel the danger. The cat, which was supposed to hate Cas, mysteriously stopped hating him a third of the way through the book.

The last problem that I had with this book was how obnoxiously BORING it was. There was no suspence, no horror. Just descriptive narrative about disembowled bodies with parts lying all over the place. The creepiest thing I found about the book didn't even come from a main character. It came from a dead dude (Mike) for two pages. It was so very flat. Though I'm curious as to what happens next, I'm not so curious that I'm going to immediately go out and buy the next book in the series.

Props to the author for writing the book and using very interesting facts. I'm always interested in the paranormal, ghost stories, urban legends, folklore, myths... And some things kind of seemed technical in the book which was great. Professional almost, like Cas knew a lot about the business (which makes complete sense when considering how long he'd been hunting before).  There was a light humor to it. Somewhat easy to follow. All in all, I'd give it a two out of five. Although it wasn't a mindblowing book to read, it most definitely was not a waste of my time. It was light while serious, and much more boring than fun, but it was slightly enjoyable. I just really wasn't in any kind of rush to keep reading it.

I suggest, though, that you keep in mind that this is my opinion. When comparing it to some other reviews, you'll find that some other people enjoyed it a lot, and that there were few that didn't. Moreover, it's up to you to decide.

One last thing to say... it's more ironic really... That Anna Dressed in Blood is about ghosts and killing things and that last night I was flipping through some channels and saw that American Horror Story had on a really, just drop dead seriously, creepy ghost story... Or at least there were a lot of grotesque dead people. I don't know. I was just flipping through channels. Blood and ghosts seem to be the theme this week...