Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Anna Dressed in Blood- Anna #1

Rating- 5/5

Summary (Goodreads)- Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story...

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.

I LOVE, LOVE this story! It's such an unusual story, well for me at least. I don't usually read horror stories, so I was expecting a lot from this book, and I'm glad that I enjoyed it. The writing style itself was quite simple, but I found that it worked really well with this book. Because it was simple, it was also easier to connect with the story.It was quite scary at parts though, since it's pretty gruesome. I convinced myself to not read this book at night... :P
Like, when Cas met the hitchhiker ghost at chapter 1 and then the ghost went crazy? Well, that was quite a scary opening...

I loved Cas. He was such an interesting character, and I loved the connection he had with Anna. Anna wasn't like an average ghost. At the start, I thought that she's just a ghost that Cas is going to kill, and I was wondering how the romance is going to work. But then, when we first met Anna, I realised that she's more than a mere bloody killer. There's more to her story, so I was very impressed with it.  Cas was...I guess kind of a closed person. Before this point, he didn't have any friends, he just used others to get information. He's also bent in getting revenge for his father, which added more depth into his character. It showed why he chose this path, and the actions he took. I don't think the characters are very developed yet, but since it's only the first book, then that's alright!  
I also really liked the supporting characters. At first I thought that Carmel was going to be one of those super annoying girls, but luckily she's not! She's grown on me, and I think Carmel and Thomas would make a cute pair~ :]

The twist. Oh, the twist. How wonderfully horrible it was. I really didn't think of it, until I got a bit further into the story. There were more clues dropped in (especially by Anna), and when it happened...I was like- yup, I thought so! But it was quite a nice twist, and yeah...somehow surprising as well. The ending was pretty sad though...~sigh~  But the fact that there's a second book lifted my hopes. I'm going to find it in my library! HEHEHE XD

Anyway, I really recommend this book to everyone. It's wonderful, kinda scary, exciting and original. What more do you want? :]

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