Book Review - Anna Dressed In Blood

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Cas is obsessed with hunting ghosts. It's like a family tradition, for one, but there's also the fact his father had been killed by one. When Cas hears about Anna Dressed in Blood, he knows she's the big haul. The one he has to kill.

But she lets him live. Spares his life when she could have torn him into two pieces. Now Cas is on unfamiliar ground, and things are about to get a lot more complicated.

From the beginning this book held my attention. The voice of the main character is distinct, snarky, and a lot a fun to go through the story with. Pieces and hints of later plot events are speckled throughout, and rules of the characters, the world, and the ghosts are set and reaffirmed as the story progresses.

In short: I had a lot of fun reading it.

I wish there had been more to a specific set of characters' interactions and chemistry, and I would have liked the ending twist to have been foreshadowed more. More importantly, however, the events made sense. A few times I wanted to smack characters upside the head, but this had less to do with the soundness and progression of events and more about the fact that they're teenagers.

Although I did have to suspend my belief regarding interactions around the knife later in the book, but the author didn't require too many of those (you know, beside it being about ghosts and such) so I was more than willing to look over it.

Anna herself is both a sympathetic character, and one to be feared. What she does, and how she does it, aren't exactly nice and respectful. While I wish more time had been spent on what exactly was her drive the author succeeded in creating a complex character I was more than willing to root for.

I enjoyed Cas and his mom's relationship and how she dealt with her son going off and frolicking with deadly ghosts as he hunts and destroys them. While perhaps not completely realistic, it was one of those things set from the beginning and reaffirmed enough to be believable.

The ending is emotionally satisfying and leaves plenty open for another book while not necessarily being a cliff hanger.

I will be continuing the series, and will also look for other books by Kendare Blake.

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