Book Review: Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Title: Anna Dressed in Blood

Author:  Kendare Blake
First Published: August 30th 2011

Genre: YA, Horror
Pages: 316
Rating: 4 out of 5

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.

Anna Dressed in Blood is the first horror book that I've ever read. It did dissapoint a little on it's "horrorness" but it was fun reading it.

This is about a guy, Cas, who goes around killing ghosts who kill people. He and his Mom (who is a white witch) head to Canada on a tip about a ghost named Anna Dressed in Blood.  

Narrated by Cas, I thought the voice was strong, except for a few parts where I thought to myself "There's no way a teenage boy would say something like that" and I loved the Anna character. I thought she was terrifying and grotesque but then also really fascinating. Her character showed the most growth in the story, which is why I liked her the most. 

The writing style was not at all as I expected. I don't know what I expected, maybe something darker, more somber? This was fun, light and entertaining. I was thoroughly grossed out many times, but this isn't a "scary" story. 

Anna Dressed in Blood has a pretty high level of vulgarity for a YA novel -- I haven't seen many others with as much as this one. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, no.It's refreshing to see something different, is all I'm really trying to say here. It's nice to see an author not trying to conform herself of her novel to the boundaries set by other YA books and authors. Going outside the lines isn't a bad thing to do once in a while, and Blake has that on lock!

Although, I expected some parts to be way scarier, Anna Dressed in Blood was a great book.

                                     4  stars