Sunday, April 14, 2013

Book Review: Anna Dressed in Blood By: Kendare Blake


Book Description:
Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story...

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

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder 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. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, 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, but now stained red and dripping 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.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.
My Thoughts:
So this was EXTREMELY well written! Why then, did I give it only 2 stars? It scared the CRAP out of me! for 2 nights in a row I slept with the light on and my husband came to bed and turned it off, then if I had to get  up in the night I had my Kindle next to me so I would read something happy till I fell asleep. This book creeped me out! It was extremely graphic and what's weird is the only language was F*bombs (?????). 
So Cass wasn't a real likeable character to me, I wanted to punch in the face a few times because I found him to be a bit conceited. When he first arrives in Thunder Bay he walks around the school like he's way too cool to be there and he knows everything and how to work everybody. To his credit, I mean I guess he is too cool cause I mean he does kills ghosts for a living. But the way those girls just fawned over him, like he was some Grecian god, was just a little over the top for me.
I really liked Carmel and the fact that although she is the Queen of the school, she wasn't mean she was smart and NICE something you don't read everyday when it comes to the Queen.
Blake was cool and I liked him, he was nice and just a cute character.
The main character Anna was ridiculously scary to me. This is what I imagined her to be throughout the whole time she was "scary Anna":


And I think that is what the author was going for and I got it! Then again, I don't do well with horror anyways...
HOWEVER the romance was just creepy, gross, and disturbing to me... Here we have a killer vindictive girl running around killing people and Cass going all "goo-goo eyes" over a dead girl? Yeah, um...eww! If guys like it when when a girl makes her eyes go black, her veins crawl up her arms, her deep- neck wound opening up to create her flowing blood dress appealing then you need to see someone, cause there is something majorly wrong with you. I just didn't see where that relationship was supposed to be headed. AND THEN they made out on the front porch of her possessed house and all I could think was, "OMG Ewwww..." And I was done...

Overall: If you like this stuff fine but I'm not recommending it.

Language: HEAVY (lots of F* Bombs)
Violence: HEAVY
Drug/Alcohol: mild
Sexual Content: mild





2 comments:

  1. I read this book too and had a similar reaction. I think I expected more out of it. Plus, I watch the TV show Supernatural, and this book felt like an exact copy of the show--including the name Cass!

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    1. Yeah this was beyond creepy for me. I know there is a second book and I have no idea what the author has I store for these characters, I just don't think I want to read and find out...

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