Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna Dressed in Blood Series, 1)
For three years, seventeen-year-old Cas Lowood has carried on his father's work of dispatching the murderous dead, traveling with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat, but everything changes when he meets Anna, a girl unlike any ghost he has faced before.
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
Horror we go again
You may have noticed I’m trying my hand at reading YA horror because I think it could be interesting and it offers me something different. (And because I like a little darkness in my books and writing. 😉 ) However! This is not horror. Yeah it’s got ghosts. Yeah it’s got some gore, but there is no suspense. There is no worry that the MC might not make it or whatever. I’d label this as paranormal before horror and only because there’s a ghost.
Character Development
So… I get the character development. It was the appropriate direction for the story, but… it didn’t feel natural. There wasn’t enough of Cas’s original personality in the beginning to understand and accept the change throughout the course of the story and even then, he seemed to change rather quickly instead of slowly over time based on the events in the story. And then he seemed to regress at the end! It was just all wrong.
It Ended… right?
One thing that really bothered me about this book was the sudden plot change. The first 60% of the book is focused on hunting ghosts and Anna and then suddenly, when you think the book is over, just kidding! It’s not! It just keeps going with a brand new plot and a horrible shift in everyone’s character like it’s just that easy. It could have been done, but not in the manner in which it was executed in the book.
Narrator
August Ross was the narrator for this book and I personally would never listen to him narrate again. I’m not generally a huge fan of male narrators, but I dislike him in particular. He inclined his voice for all the female characters. However, in doing so, he made them all sound like haughty, dumb, airheads and this really bothered me.
Romance
Yeah… About that… The romance was unrealistic, completely illogical, and just unnecessary for this story. The dude isn’t killed by a ghost he’s hunting and has a couple short conversations with her, and suddenly he’s in love with her and can’t banish her/kill her/whatever. Not only that, but he wants to give up ghost hunting to stay with her and have a life with her… a ghost… unable to age… Of course! That makes total sense! …not.
You may have noticed I’m trying my hand at reading YA horror because I think it could be interesting and it offers me something different. (And because I like a little darkness in my books and writing. 😉 ) However! This is not horror. Yeah it’s got ghosts. Yeah it’s got some gore, but there is no suspense. There is no worry that the MC might not make it or whatever. I’d label this as paranormal before horror and only because there’s a ghost.
Character Development
So… I get the character development. It was the appropriate direction for the story, but… it didn’t feel natural. There wasn’t enough of Cas’s original personality in the beginning to understand and accept the change throughout the course of the story and even then, he seemed to change rather quickly instead of slowly over time based on the events in the story. And then he seemed to regress at the end! It was just all wrong.
It Ended… right?
One thing that really bothered me about this book was the sudden plot change. The first 60% of the book is focused on hunting ghosts and Anna and then suddenly, when you think the book is over, just kidding! It’s not! It just keeps going with a brand new plot and a horrible shift in everyone’s character like it’s just that easy. It could have been done, but not in the manner in which it was executed in the book.
Narrator
August Ross was the narrator for this book and I personally would never listen to him narrate again. I’m not generally a huge fan of male narrators, but I dislike him in particular. He inclined his voice for all the female characters. However, in doing so, he made them all sound like haughty, dumb, airheads and this really bothered me.
Romance
Yeah… About that… The romance was unrealistic, completely illogical, and just unnecessary for this story. The dude isn’t killed by a ghost he’s hunting and has a couple short conversations with her, and suddenly he’s in love with her and can’t banish her/kill her/whatever. Not only that, but he wants to give up ghost hunting to stay with her and have a life with her… a ghost… unable to age… Of course! That makes total sense! …not.
So I've been on a YA horror kick. I found this list (http://bookriot.com/2016/07/25/65-great-ya-horror-reads-women) but I'm also really big right now on checking out book digitally from my local library. Seriously, it's like my favorite thing. The Greater Phoenix Digital Library has thousands of excellent titles and it's ridiculously easy to check out these books and get them over to my Kindle. Which is fab. BTDubs. And when their time is up, I DON'T GET FINED. That's the big perk. I am literally the worst at returning books (I have been borrowing this one book from a friend for two years). So when the book just magically erases itself, I breathe a big fat sigh of relief and turn to the next one. Yeah, you do have to read them within two weeks, but that hasn't been a problem. Yet.
Having said that, I'm also not interested right now in waiting for these YA horror books, so I've been checking out ones that I can get immediately, you know, that say "Borrow" instead of "Place a Hold" when you hover over them. I have plenty of holds of other, more "worthy" books. Snark snark snort snort. There is no such thing, I'm just being snobby.
ANYHOW, this was the first book I checked out in that initial flurry but the last I read. I guess I saved the best for last, because that's what this was. I liked the narrator (he was just hip enough to be funny but not so hip it smelled of desperation to get that teenage vote of approval). I enjoyed the plot. It was fairly unpredictable. It was one of those plots where everything I thought was going to happen happened and there was still 40% of the book left (silly Kindle). But the last 40% was fairly gripping and actually horrifying. When I went to bed (why do I keep doing this to myself?) I was legitimately creeped out by visions of eyes sewn shut and grasping claw-hands. Fortunately, corralling small children five days a week really wears you out, so I dropped off pretty quickly. But still. Legit scared. That's new for these so-called horror books.
The only drawback, I'd say, is that it is the first in YET ANOTHER SERIES. I long for the days when books were just one-offs. I am so sick of series I could puke. But I will probably trudge along because, hell, why not?
Having said that, I'm also not interested right now in waiting for these YA horror books, so I've been checking out ones that I can get immediately, you know, that say "Borrow" instead of "Place a Hold" when you hover over them. I have plenty of holds of other, more "worthy" books. Snark snark snort snort. There is no such thing, I'm just being snobby.
ANYHOW, this was the first book I checked out in that initial flurry but the last I read. I guess I saved the best for last, because that's what this was. I liked the narrator (he was just hip enough to be funny but not so hip it smelled of desperation to get that teenage vote of approval). I enjoyed the plot. It was fairly unpredictable. It was one of those plots where everything I thought was going to happen happened and there was still 40% of the book left (silly Kindle). But the last 40% was fairly gripping and actually horrifying. When I went to bed (why do I keep doing this to myself?) I was legitimately creeped out by visions of eyes sewn shut and grasping claw-hands. Fortunately, corralling small children five days a week really wears you out, so I dropped off pretty quickly. But still. Legit scared. That's new for these so-called horror books.
The only drawback, I'd say, is that it is the first in YET ANOTHER SERIES. I long for the days when books were just one-offs. I am so sick of series I could puke. But I will probably trudge along because, hell, why not?
For some reason I have had a difficult time writing this review. I enjoyed the book. I found the beginning to be an interesting way to introduce the reader to Cas and what he did. I was impressed with the mystery because it wasn’t really centered on what Anna had done, but more about what had been done to her. I was also surprised by the answer to the mystery. It was one of the few stories I didn’t see the answer fifty pages before the big reveal. I was actually kind of excited about that. I look forward to the next book in the series.
This book had me laughing, crying, shivering and sniveling. Gasping as well. Phenomenal. :)[bc:Anna Dressed in Blood|9378297|Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna, #1)|Kendare Blake|http:d.gr-assets.com/books/1317793801s/9378297.jpg|14261925]
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.