Anna Dressed in Blood - Novel Review - TWU LS 5623-20 - SU2012

Blake, Kendare. Anna Dressed in Blood. New York, Tor Teen eBooks, 2011. Digital. eISBN 978-1-4299-8281-8, 369p. She was supposed to be the kill that would finally prepare him to avenge his father. As Cas made his way to Thunder Bay and the Canadian wilderness he only knew that he was drawn to the story of this ghost as he had been to no other he dispatched in the last two years. He would play the high school game as he always did, make the contacts, learn her story, but in the end it would all be about her, the most powerful ghost he would ever meet. Anna Dressed In Blood would become a part of him, more than he ever intended, and Cas would find his life changed forever the moment he passed through her door. “’I don’t want to do this again,’ the hitchhiker whispers. ‘This is the last time,’ I say, and then I strike, drawing the blade across his throat…in less than a minute he’s gone, leaving not a trace behind” (pg. 14). Kendare Blake’s tantalizing tale of a teenage ghost killer who confronts one of the most powerful and heart-wrenching ghosts in North America is a spine-tingling page turner that kept me intrigued from start to finish. I became so invested in the wonderful story of Thesius Cassio, or Cas, and his friends and family that upon completing my reading I pre-ordered book two, due for release this August. What is most enjoyable about this tale is that it is the best of many previously told tales intertwined in a wonderful new way and placed in the realm of the supernatural. What Blake get’s out of this new recipe is a wonderful taste full of familiar flavors but brought together in a wholly unique way. A love story that shouldn’t exist, a young man’s drive to avenge the death of his father, the seemingly impossible coming together of a group of high school students from different cliques and an obsessed villain who has been manipulating the story unknowingly from the onset are the tried-and-true story elements that come together in Anna Dressed in Blood. The author gets the most credit in this story for making a fresh and lively supernatural adventure that has a satisfying reveal at the end, while still leaving the reader wondering what happened next. It should be noted to parents that there is a significant amount of violence and carnage in this book. I do not consider this a negative for appropriate age readers but I would not necessarily recommend this to younger readers. Parents should preview this text and make a determination as to whether or no they feel it is appropriate for their child. While the ferocity of the combat scenes may be considered unnecessary by some, I personally find it gives the text a verisimilitude that is necessary for us to buy in to the story line. If one is in the business of sending deadly ghosts to their final destination it only makes sense that danger and fighting for one’s life would accompany the career choice. So long as parents are aware that they should preview the text, this book would be enjoyable for most Young Adult readers. Blake, Kendare. Anna Dressed in Blood. New York, Tor Teen eBooks, 2011. Digital.