Anna Dressed in Blood - Kendare Blake

“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”

Hi Guys, sorry I haven’t written in a while. I have just moved and as I am sure many of you know it is very hectic and the broadband has only now gotten up and running so I apologise for the spam of reviews. Anyway onto the book, what a disappointing read.

Sometimes you read books that are visibly bad. So bad, in fact, that they make you want to throw yourself head first out a window, but you keep on reading. You might even feel yourself losing your will to live about halfway through. But somehow, by the end of the book, you end up liking it anyway because it entertained you. The badness was just that... entertaining. Then, there are other books that are good, but just do nothing for you. Anna Dressed in Blood was the latter for me. There was nothing wrong with this book and I usually like ghost stories. However...

The three biggest issues I had with the book:

Cas:

For the most part I did like him, but in the beginning I found him to be a bit conceited. When he first arrives in Thunder Bay, Ontario he walks around the school like he's way too cool to be there. To his credit, I guess he really is. I mean, he 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.

"I make my way to her table, seeing eyes growing wider as I do. Ten or so other girls probably just developed instantaneous crushes on me, because they see that Carmel likes me."

Then there was the issue with him being the only one able to kill ghosts. He kept repeating, "I'm the only one who can do this" and I kept asking, "Oh, yeah? Why? Why, Cas? What makes you so speshul?" Yes, I realize he comes from a long line of ghost hunters, but why his family? What makes his bloodline different from anyone else? I needed background info and I never got it.

Anna:

This book has a reputation, making me believe I would need to read it with the lights on. Usually, I scare very easily. I wasn't scared one bit while reading. At first, when Cas "runs into" Anna, I was thinking, "Uh, oh. It's about to go down." And for a minute it did. Anna. Oh, Anna. Why couldn't you remain scary?

I wanted you to run around angry, strike some fear in people's hearts, make me afraid of the dark for a few nights, tear some things up. But instead I got Casper the friendly ghost.

For some odd reason you didn't have the urge to hurt Cas, which is never explained. Again, why is this kid so speshul?

The Romance:

This is honestly where the book started to lose me. Killer vindictive girl running around killing people? I can handle that. Cas going all "goo-goo eyes" over a dead girl? Yeah, um...it didn't work for me. I just didn't see where that relationship was supposed to be headed. It was different, I'll give Blake that, but it just didn't work for me.

I Never saw the villain coming. He was confusing and unpredictable.

Age 13+. Violent