Book Review: Anna Dressed In Blood (Anna #1)

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.
*Copied and pasted from Goodreads. 

Title of Book: Anna Dressed in Blood
Author of book: Kendare Blake

Date of publication: 30 August 2011
Publisher: Tor Teen

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Who Recommended it to Me: My Goodreads friends
Who I Would Recommend it to: Those who love a good scare. :) 

My Review (may contain spoilers):

I don't usually go for books like these (and was very skeptical after reading "Just your average girl-meets-boy, girl-kills-people story..."), but after reading some pretty convincing reviews and talking to a few people about it, I was convinced.  I believe in ghosts, I really do.  Picking up this book, I wondered if the fact that I believed in ghosts would make this book more exciting or more terrifying.  It turns out, I wasn't actually that scared by it.  Sure, there were a few moments when I grabbed the edge of my seat and held my breath for a few extra seconds, but all in all, it wasn't that scary. 

First of all, I loved Cas.  He was very, very boy, if you know what I mean.  A lot of times, female authors try to narrate voices of boys and end up making them sound suspiciously feminine.  But Cas, he sounded like a boy! That shouldn't be such a shock, but it is, to me. I don't usually go for books with boys as the main character, but this one really impressed me.  I also loved Carmel and Thomas, especially together.  Carmel, the typical beach blond gorgeous popular girl, and Thomas, the weird gawky kid with glasses falling off his nose and a weird dude as his guardian.  I don't know about anyone else, but I think they'll be getting together in the next book.  :P 

At first I thought it was a little weird that Cas should fall in love with a murderous ghost (who turned out to be pretty normal despite all her madness the past 60 years), but after Anna became free, she was so real that a lot of times I forgot she was a ghost, it was funny because when we were first introduced to her, she reminded me a little of Bertha Mason (Jane Eyre reference, for those of you who haven't read it).  She was brilliantly developed throughout the entire book and I liked that.  Her development didn't seem rushed at all.

The part that scared me the most about the book was finding out how she was murdered.  Good thing I didn't read that one at night, because I would have had bad dreams if I went to sleep right after I read that.  Knock on wood, I'll probably have bad dreams tonight having said that.  The idea that a mother would hate her daughter enough to cut her throat was revolting to me, and I almost closed the book right then.  But of course, curiosity got the better of me and helped me through the rest of the book.  I realize now that even if I had closed the book then, I would have picked it up again because that's just kind of the way I am. 

I'd recommend this book, but only to people who like the feeling of being scared, and yeah, for people who like ghost stories.  This book really fascinated me and had me dying to read more of this series.  I know that I'll be getting the second book in this series whenever I have the chance to.  :)