Review: Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake - Farah

Title: Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna #1)

Author: Kendare Blake 

Publication date: August 30th, 2011

Publisher: TorTeen

Genre(s): Young Adult (Ghosts)

Challenges: A-Z

Source: Publisher

Format: Hardback

Pages: 316

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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.

Spooky, thrilling, and full of excitement. That was Anna Dressed in Blood.  Being the first ghost book I ever read, it was everything I hoped for. The books started with Cas on the hunt of killing an already dead man, in other words, a ghost. Cas Lowood kills the dead, and has always been doing it since his father died. Living with his witch mother and her black cat, Cas always travelled around the world to kill specific ghosts. That's when he travels to Canada in order to kill Anna. Anna being called Anna Dressed in Blood already has a reputation around the town. Cas already thinks of it as a challenge to hunt and kill Anna. This book being from a male's POV wasn't so bad! I always prefer girl protagonists than boys, but I actually really enjoyed this book, even though it was from a guy's POV. 

It was nice to see how Cas normally went to school to do his research on Anna. That's where he met some people, and hung out with them to find out more. All the characters were likable, and felt real. I really don't know how to describe this, but the characters seemed whole and genuine. At first I thought I wouldn't really enjoy reading about Anna because she's a ghost, but somehow I really liked Anna! I understood her, and her pain, and I was able to know why she acted the way she did. I really liked the flow of how Cas and Anna met, and how everything else happened. The relationship, does sound ridiculous, but it felt good. I highly enjoyed reading how Anna and Cas got to like each other, even though it's between ghost and human. Definitely different and heart clenching!

Overall, Kendare did a great job in writing this book. It showed that she did her research, because it really felt like I was living the moment with them. It felt very spooky, and so many times I was so scared while reading the book at night! I was actually scared I'd have nightmares! I have to say the ending killed me, so I really cannot wait to get my hands on the sequel of the book, Girl of Nightmares.