Anna Dressed in Blood

Title/Author: Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake.

Genre: YA/Supernatural.

Publisher: Tor Teen.

Source: Purchased.

Favorite character: Cas.

Favorite quote:  "...where the scent of death is carried to you every seventh breath."  ~Cas.

"Death is my world." ~Cas.

"I wouldn't touch New Orleans with a ten-foot pole. That town is haunted as shit, and all the better for it.  Nowhere in the world loves its ghosts more than city." ~Cas.

Synopsis: 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. ~Product Description.

My Thoughts: Would you look at that cover??? Just look at it! It’s amazing!  Especially coupled with the title. How could I not read it? And when I started hearing great things about it, I just couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.

At first the color of the font threw me off and hurt my eyes.  I think it's supposed to look like blood or dried blood, but the story quickly had me enraptured.

Anna Dressed in Blood reminded me of a spinoff of Supernatural. You’ve got an uber cool male main character, Cas, who is a ghost hunter, an urban legend and a killer ghost. The formula smells like success, but let’s face it, not every author can do it right. But this book? Perfection.

I don’t really swoon over book males that often, especially teen age ones, because let’s face it, the age difference is embarrassing even if it is all fictional…but Cas (sigh). He is just so awesome and I've turned into an awestruck teenager again. His voice grabs you right away with an observant ease and a self possessed awareness of who he is and what he does.  I love his contemplative mind, his disdain of the silly girls and bonehead jocks at his school and his humor.  I have to say, I also loved the cursing that Cas used.  It wasn't abundant but it was definitely noticeable.  It made me feel more connected to him, maybe because I have a potty mouth, or maybe because it made me feel that it made him more human, more real.

I love the secondary characters that Cas befriends as well.  From Carmel, the popular girl to Thomas, the geeky misfit.  These characters go beyond their stereotypes to being integral to the story and to Cas. All of their friendships grow throughout the book.  Cas's understanding and attachment to Anna is central and integral to the story as he journeys to understand this ghost that intrigues him and haunts him in more ways than one. 

The plot weaves together and is surprising and strong.  The ghost story, Cas’s mysterious past…I just loved it. There were spooky scenes and very frightening scenes and I love how they were done. From ghosts to…well, I don’t want to give too much away. But I love the eerienesss of it, the danger of it.  This book could have ended a certain way, but the author took the story and went one step further.  The next installment, Girl of Nightmares, is due out in August and I can't wait to visit Cas and his world again.

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