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Anna Dressed in Blood (Hardback)
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Short Description for Anna Dressed in BloodArmed with his father's mysterious and deadly dagger, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local folklore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead - keeping annoying things like the future and friends at bay.
Full description- Publisher: Tor Books
- Published: 17 October 2011
- Format: Hardback 320 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: General
- ISBN 13: 9780765328656 ISBN 10: 0765328658
- Sales rank: 5,736
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Reviews for Anna Dressed in Blood
Hauntingly Original
I am overwhelmed at how good Anna Dressed in Blood is. There wasn't a part where I found it dragging to the point where I was screaming "GET ON WITH IT!". It was going at a perfect pace. Authors who are able to write a book in a perfect pace needs to be worshipped for their awesomeness at it. If I ever get the chance to write a book, I don't think I'll ever get a perfect pace like how Blake wrote this book.
I'm guilty. I didn't actually read the synposis before I decided to get this or read this. And because of that I didn't know the lead character, Cas was a boy until like the 2nd Chapter. Thats a major fail on my part. Anyways, I adore Young Adult books with male leads. It breaks the chain of endless female protagonists. Its rare but each time there is one "male" lead. I know for sure, the book will be good.
And I was not disappointed. Like the title, my copy of Anna Dressed in Blood was also dressed and filled with its own blood. The text was crimson. Which adds in a more haunting effect to the book.
Cas, our lead, is awesomely written and acts like he should as a teenager. He's a ghost hunter, like his father before him. He's dad is dead and he moves around with his mom killing ghosts with his dads knife. Cas is fascinated by the mysterious story of Anna, Anna Dressed in Blood and so he moves to Thunder Bay to kill it/her. Cas is a perfect protagonist for this role and for sure, a reader will love him.
Along the way, Cas, who is a lone ranger per se. Meets two teenagers his age, who he accidentally drags into his plan to kill Anna and with their help they try a spell to weaken Anna. At some point, the book got scary. Like Look-behind-your-shoulder-scary. To be exact, Chapter 20 scared the begezuz out of me!
Anna Dressed in Blood is haunting, dark, gorey, extremely unique, original and by far the best book I've read in 2011. The world Blake creates is utterly vivid and captivating. Its that definite read everyone is longing to read. The book that'll haunt you after reading. A definite unputdownable book. by Najla QamberReview from I'm Loving Books Blog
Anna Dressed In Blood is one of those books that I just couldn't resist. Quite honestly it's not my normal genre. Despite loving paranormal books, I've never really read a book labeled as "horror", and I'm not really into the whole ghost theme. But after seeing so many great reviews for it, I decided I'd give it a shot. Plus, the cover! I mean c'mon, how could you resist that cover? lol
I think I was sort of expecting something spookier and scarier though. Being that I've never really read a horror novel, I'm not exactly sure what to expect in terms of how I can be scared of a book. I know it happens, I've just never experienced it before. But this book didn't really feel like a horror novel to me. It just felt like a paranormal book. The "scary" aspects weren't really all that scary and there was even a little bit of romance.
That's not to say it wasn't good because I did enjoy it. But if you go into the book expecting something scary, you'll probably be a little bit disappointed (at least in my opinion). Maybe I'm just hard to scare though! lol I'd like to think so. ;)
But where I think this book really triumphs is with the character building. Especially when it comes to Anna and Cris. Both of their backgrounds and the whys of the things they do are really fleshed out and you really gain an understanding and empathy for both of their characters. The secondary characters, not so much, but that's pretty expected, especially for a first-in-series.
One other thing about the book that was a little bit weak was the pace. I found the first half (150 pages or so) to be kind of slow. Despite a few wow moments, I wasn't really impressed. Where the book starts to shine though is around page 200. The plot takes on a sort of twist and it gets to be pretty interesting.
Overall, I sadly didn't love this as much as everyone else seems to. But I did like it a lot. I definitely am curious about what will happen next as the book left off with a bit of a cliffhanger and I really want to see where it goes. I think this was a pretty solid first-in-series but I'm hoping the next book will have a bit more action and adventure, and it would be nice to dive into the secondary characters a little bit more. by I'm Loving BooksMeet Anna, you won't regret
The first thing that urged me to read this book was the cover, it's compelling don't you think? Like it's telling you to take it from the bookshelf. And there's also the name of course because, I don't know you but as soon as I read the name I thought:"why is she covered in blood?! I want to know why".
And I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of horror books, not even the YA ones but with this book I had to do an exception and I'm glad I did. Sure there are a couple of scenes where blood is involved and spooky things happen (I know, I know, that's what horror books are about but, well, I can handle programs like Supernatural, Criminal Minds or Fringe but not horror books^^U) but the way the book is written and the story are far too good to stop reading.
Now for the book: At the beginning of the book we meet Cas, the main character who is giving a ride to some random guy who was hitchhiking but as we keep reading we get that this random guy is dead and that Cas has being waiting for this moment to happen for months because he wants to kill him. Yes, the guy is already dead but Cas needs to stop him. Want to know why? Well, Mr. Hitchhiker here has been killing people since he was murdered in the same road they are going now and Cas is a hunter, just like his father was. He hunts these things in oder to stop them from killing.
He doesn't know where they go after and he doesn't hate them, in fact, most of the ghosts he goes after don't even know they are dead, they just have to kill.
And after completing his job Cas and his mom move to a new town, almost like always. But this time is different, this time he is going after a particular ghost, a ghost that is special even if he doesn't know why or how he knows that.
He is right, of course, because Anna "knows" she is dead and remembers everything that happened the night she died. And she is probable one of the most terrible ghosts out there.
But for some reason, when she has the chance to kill Cas she didn't and he needs to know why.
For When we first meet Cas he is a lonely boy and by his own choice. The reason is that he only wants one thing: revenge for his father's death and the only person that reaches his heart is her mother. But everything changes in this new town when he meets Carmel, the popular girl of school and Thomas, the not-at-all popular boy. These two somehow become his best friends in a fight that might kill all of them.
And Anna... She was just great. At the beginning of the book it's impossible to like her for all the things she has done but when we get to know her story it's impossible not to like her. That's why I like this book: Kendara's writing flows and creates a super story that continues in the next book of this series.
If you haven't read it give it a try, even in you are not a fan of scary stories this one is worth the exception, trust me. by Alaiel Kreuz- Top review
Not as Scary as I hoped
Find Full Review at http://www.readingangel.com/2011/10/anna-dressed-in-blood-by-kendare-blake.html
I love a good ghost story so I was really excited to pick up Anna Dressed in Blood. I liked that it was written from a male point of view. Cas was a fun character to read about. He was smart, strong, and funny. Thomas and his grandfather were my favorite characters. They were both quirky, exciting, and completely unique. The character of Anna (the ghost) was great, but not nearly scary enough for my tastes. I was really hoping to get into a good scary ghost story that kept me up at night and this sadly fell short in that area. by Reading Angel It was an okay horror.
A girl, with black veins snaking up her pale skin with black eyes and lips, a dark goddess, with her dress dripping blood on the floor. That's scary alright. But I don't really loved loved this book, but I do like it in some ways. I loved Cas, a boy who hunts ghost and kill them "again" with his special knife called athame which was left by his late father- murdered by unknown. Cas apparently took over this job after his father died, also to seek revenge. He travels with his witch mom from place to place to kill the new subject. Came one day, evil ghost Anna who have murdered a lot of people were Cas' next hunt.From there he will meet friends he never had before, and a unique kind of ghost he never encountered his whole life hunting.
OK so this is kind of predictable well at least predictable for me though I was intrigued how Anna died, and what was making her evil. I loved the characters and liked the humors. I also loved being inside of Cas mind and knowing his feelings. Though the whole story didn't really put me under spell, it was an okay read. The start was very good but then halfway through, I had a hard time connecting to the story. I got bored and frustrated when they were hunting the flesh-eating monster I had to skip a lot of pages just to get to what I find exciting.
So this is only my opinion, It would have been better if the story had stuck with ghost and not a monster who suddenly came out of the knife, I kind of find it improbable and a bit corny, and when the "athame"(knife-thing) was stolen, it took him ages to get it from his friend.
But then again don't take my word for it, you may like it or even love it too. I wont say I hate this book because I have kind of enjoyed it too. And I will not deny it, I still want to read the second installment. I am kind of curious what will happen next. by FicbookreviewsReviewed by Andrea for TeensReadToo
Cas Lowood is following in his dead father's footsteps - by killing ghosts. He and his mom travel around the country killing the ghosts who are violent to others.
After receiving a note about a ghost that everyone calls Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas and his mom move to Canada. There he finds several unexpected things - a ghost more powerful than he's ever encountered before, and for the first time, other teens that he calls friends. Plus, Anna isn't any normal ghost. She seems to not want to hurt anyone, but doesn't seem able to help herself. Yet, she doesn't hurt Cas. With his friends' help, Cas has to overcome Anna's power and set her free.
Wow! Talk about a ghost story! This is one of those totally gory, scary stories that keeps you up at night. And it was so well-written and detailed that I could easily see it being a movie.
Usually, I have a hard time enjoying books that are told from a male character's point of view. I'm not sure why, but I do. But not so with this story! I really liked Cas. He was a character who was a good guy. He had heart and wasn't all macho all of the time. And he also had a great sense of humor. And Anna - a girl straight out of nightmares! But a girl who doesn't want to be bad. Loved her. The secondary cast like Thomas and Carmel were great, as well.
I found myself reading ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD late at night, not wanting to put it down, but at the same time thinking "What am I doing? I'm going to give myself nightmares!" It's a great thing to be so involved in a book. What fun! by TeensReadToo
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