Anna Dressed in Blood (YA Paranormal Horror)

Anna Dressed in Blood Synopsis: 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.- Goodreads

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Anna Dressed in Blood Review

Anna Dressed in Blood was pretty much what I’m coming to expect from YA Horror.  It touches occasionally on the edges of disturbing, it has an unnecessary (and in this case more than slightly creepy) dose of romance, and there’s the smattering of self-doubt/loathing. Oh yeah, there’s also as many pop culture references as one can feasibly shove in. It was also entertaining. Never gets close to the “oh my god, I gotta finish this ASAP!” level, mind you, but, just like its bigger, badder, (and more appealing) cousin Supernatural, there’s a guilty sort of pleasure in seeing it through to its end.

This is definitely Supernatural-lite. Remove a brother, make Bobby British, and substitute the Impala for a non-cool car, etc, and you’ve got all the brooding, somewhat inappropriately hormonal, kick-ass action, but now at a safely rated level that even the little’uns can enjoy!  Yes, I’m ragging on the book, and probably a little bit more than I should be, considering how much I did genuinely enjoy reading it. Oh, and there was some undeniable Scooby-gang wanna-be action that was fun to see.

Guilty pleasures, man! Its like rolling your eyes and announcing “Not this crap again!” when the hottest new song comes on the radio – and singing every lyric along with it perfectly twenty seconds later.

Kendare Blake delivers a well-told story in a subtle, under-dramatized way that makes you appreciate it even if it fails to enthrall you. It’s an easy read that never challenges you, doesn’t try to make you think, just invites you to sit back and let the story’s current guide you gently along. I must applaud the absolute lack of a love-triangle. Blake could have easily went in that direction – the setup was definitely there – but she didn’t. Instead you get a respectful acknowledgement of a burgeoning relationship…and a couple good-natured pokes of a young man who is happy to see his friend getting the girl he always wanted.

Overall, it’s not one I’d shove to the top of your “Must-read” list, but… it’s definitely worth a spot on the list, somewhere. Probably a good read when its twilight, a bit too warm, and you’re able to lounge outside with a cool drink.

Click here to find Anna Dressed in Blood now on Amazon.

Title: Anna Dressed in Blood | Series: Anna Dressed in Blood #1 | Author: Kendare Blake (site) | Publisher: Tor Teen | Pub. Date: 2011-10-17 | Pages: 320 | ISBN13: 9780765328656 | Genre(s): Young Adult & Horror | Language: English | Triggers: Inference of molestation by a father figure | Rating: 4 out of 5 | Date Read: 2016-3-20 | Source: Library