Review: Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Sep 042012

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

*listened to audio provided for free by AudioFile Magazine*

Regina’s Rating: 3 stars/Grade B

Blurb:

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.

Regina’s Review:

I could not wait to read this book and when I learned the audio book would be available for free through the audiosync summer download program, I waited to listen to it. That was a mistake. This is not a book to listen to. The narration is horrible. It is painful to listen to. But I pushed through because I wanted to finish the story. This was my second mistake. I should have stopped, deleted the file from my computer and phone forever and just read the book. A so-so narrator doesn’t usually effect my opinion of a book, but a seriously poorly done narration likely effects my enjoyment of a story. It is hard for me to say if I would have enjoyed the story more if I had read it. I cannot stress how bad the narration is, it is almost laughable. I recommend giving this book a try – - but read it. Don’t listen. I know it was free, but it isn’t worth the struggle.

So what did I like about the story?

Hey! Look at that cover! It is beautiful. The book is worth liking for the cover alone.
Murdering ghosts
Interesting lead (whose name is Cass … popular name in this genre right now
Dark story, pushing a young adult story in a direction most young adult stories do not go
I believe the sequel will answers my questions below and I am planning on reading it.
Horror-ific descriptions. Gore, lots of it and I loved it. The cover lived up to my expectations of how the scenes would be painted.

What I didn’t enjoy about the story?

The side characters didn’t stand out to me. I didn’t miss them when they weren’t in a scene and ultimately the characters blended together for me.
The murders and who done it aspect was not interesting to me.
The focus of the story for me was Anna and the resolution of her story, everything that happened after that was something I rushed through (literally I changed the audio to 2X speed)
The world building was weak and left me with questions.

To be fair, the questions I have about the murdering ghosts are the same questions I have for Stacia Kane’s downside ghosts series. The idea of the afterlife not being peaceful and completely switching the framework of how we view the afterlife (e.g. murdering ghosts) leaves me wondering, why, how? In the end, the story was decent and I liked it. Anna was freaky, scary and a truly unusual female love interest. The easy love interest would be the prom queen but thank goodness Cass focuses on the dead girl. By the way, the prom girl is more than even Cass thinks she is in the beginning.

If you are looking for a spooky scary ghost story, this isn’t it but if you are looking for an interesting decent young adult horror focused story then I think most readers would enjoy this book. Just please read it – don’t listen (in case I wasn’t clear on that …)

Rating: ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠

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Regina

I am a book reader & reviewer by hobby; I read any genre, any type of fiction and non fiction. More importantly I am coffee addict, a chocoholic and a Just Dance 3 fan.

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