A review by catsy2022
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

 
Rating: B-

Read for the Spooky Bitches BC for October 2020.

Reading the cover like "Spellbinding and romantic." Romantic? What the fuck?

Anna Dressed in Blood is a story with a pretty cool concept for YA horror; Theseus Cassio Lowood (Cas) is a ghost hunter who travels around the USA and Canada hunting ghosts who are causing problems for people. AKA killing them. His latest tip is Anna Dressed in Blood, a ghost who is rumoured to be tearing vagrants and homeless people apart if they wander into her house.

The pacing of the book was actually pretty great until the big bad was introduced. With 20 pages left we are expected to believe that the bad guy will be dealt with in that space. I liked the unravelling of the mystery and how it tied into Cas' past. I felt like that was a good way of bringing the mystery to the spotlight, though it does seem to be a common thing with YA to neatly deal with any outstanding drama in the first book (rather than let it simmer).

I liked the cover of the book, too. My copy had a red dress-wearing Anna rather than the white dress Anna. The fight scenes were also pretty good and the book is unreasonably gory for a YA. I liked that a lot.

But as for what I didn't like... personally I didn't really like Cas - I felt like his voice was pretty generic. I didn't think the other characters were particularly interesting except for Thomas. The book actually reminded me a lot of Sabrina the Teenaged Witch. Someone thrust into their "destiny" all alone (once Sab becomes a witch) but has experienced people to help them / cover their weak areas.

I also really felt like the romance was awful and kind of gross. It came out of nowhere and made the book so generic. I really came here for scares, but Anna tears 1 guy apart in front of everyone and as soon a she's a cute teenage girl again, all is forgiven and we can move on? It moved at fucking the speed of light and Cas even reflects at the end of the book that 2 months had passed. Alright, that's how teenagers are but...well who could've guessed.

Read it for a bingo square but this isn't one I would recommend. 
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