Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna Series)

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. From the Kendare Blake website.

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Series: Number one in the Anna Series

Cover: Beautiful and appropriate

Genre: YA Horror

Pages/Words: 320/79,165

POV: Cas, first person

Setting: Present day Thunder Bay

Language: Moderate profanity and blasphemy

Sexual Content Rating: G

Gore and Violence Rating: Moderate

Publisher: Tor Teen (August 2011)

My thoughts: This was an interesting read though personally, I can't really say I liked it. Reading it, I felt disconnected. It was like watching a train wreck on the news. I understand that it's gruesome and horrible and sad, however I am not able to comprehend or feel the intensity that such emotions should evoke as I am not directly affected. So aside from the acceptance and acknowledgement that such an accident is awful and will be absolutely horrible for someone else, I can't say it has any lasting effect on my emotional state.

For this reason, I felt I couldn't help but be objective throughout the whole novel. Because of that, I was neither moved nor worried about the characters or the plot's development. Which to me is a let down as I feel that characters should be real and produce real emotions from a reader. Otherwise the story becomes flat and a lot less enjoyable.

Also there were some serious flaws in the way the author explained things. It had a very 'lazy' feel to it as though she didn't really think about a logical/realistic explanation and just went with something convenient. It was obviously lacking and kept grating at me.

On a positive note, I have to say that I quite liked the voice of the main character. Initially I thought that this was going to be told from Anna's point of view as I decided to read it based solely on the cover, so I was a bit surprised when a male started telling the story. Despite that, I enjoyed his somewhat dry humour. Though other than him, I didn't really like any of the other characters. Some were annoying, others were uninteresting.

This isn't a horrible book but it does have its flaws. If you're able to overlook those and don't mind a bit of violence and gore, you might enjoy this.

Cover image from goodreads