YA Weekend: Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Genre: Young Adult Horror, Paranormal

Series: Book 1 of Anna

Publisher: Tor Teen

Date of Publication: August 20, 2011

Author Information: Website | Twitter

I seem to be running into a lot of young adult novels with overly vague or very misleading descriptions lately. Anyway, I don’t know what I was expecting when I picked up this book, but for better or worse, it wasn’t this.

From what I’ve seen and heard, Anna Dressed in Blood is a horror novel. Everything about it screams, “Read me! I am scary!” I mean, you have ghost hunter Cas Lowood traveling the globe in search of urban legends and lore, vanquishing the evil spirits that are killing and terrorizing innocent people. He ends up following a tip to Thunder Bay, where a ghost called Anna has been the bane of the local population since her death in 1958.

A victim of a grisly murder herself, she is called “Anna Dressed in Blood” because her ghost still wears the white dress she had on the day she died, now dripping and stained red with gore. She haunts the house where she used to live, and every person who has ever stepped foot inside has met a gruesome end by her hand. If you ask me, when it comes to evil ghosts that need busting, no one deserves it more than Anna. I so looked forward to Cas ending her reign of terror.

And therein lies the kicker. I wanted Cas to kill Anna, not fall in love with her! Granted, I had a suspicion this was where the book was headed given its genre, not to mention how obvious it was from the way these two characters were being handled. Still, while I did not immediately dismiss or even terribly mind the romantic side plot, I did have some issues with the way their relationship unraveled. It felt rushed and clumsy, and I did not find it remotely convincing. The way I see it, Cas has been killing far too many ghosts for far too long to just up and one day fall in love with one. And despite Anna’s special circumstances, the author did not give her an engaging enough personality to persuade me that she could capture Cas’ heart so effortlessly.

Also, despite the horror vibes practically leaking off this book, it is still classified as young adult and as such I did not actually expect it to be very scary. In this I was mostly right, though there are some genuinely tense and downright disturbing scenes which could possibly set off a reader’s creep-out meter. If anything, I applaud Kendare Blake for being able to create this spine-chilling atmosphere, and wish she had expanded and continued this aspect throughout the entire book. This had all the potential to become one of the most unique young adult horror novels I’ve ever read, but it was the lukewarm romantic subplot that ended up derailing the momentum for me.

There are some other more minor things that made me stumble, including the supporting characters who felt shoehorned in and not given adequate space to really shine. Carmel, Thomas, Morfran and even Cas’ mother were all very intriguing people, with personalities that I would have been delighted to see explored further. Plus, considering how little time the teens actually spent in class, the book really could have done without the school setting to begin with. Cas could have been in the area for the summer and there would have been very little difference. Massive points to Anna Dressed in Blood for taking place in Thunder Bay though, a very nice hat tip to this very nice Northwestern Ontario city.

All in all, this book gets several mixed opinions from me, though my overall experience was positive. If the romance had been handled better, I really think this could have been something more special and amazing. As it is though, it’s still quite good. I’ll definitely still be checking out the next book.