Anna Dressed In Blood

Ladies and gentlemen, I am crushed. Feels are everywhere. I don't even know where to begin. This particular book has been sitting in my book box since the start of the year and I cannot begin to explain how much I regret not reading this sooner. If I'd use star rating, which I don't, I would give this a whole constellation, it was that brilliant. Without further ado, I present to you:

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Genre: Young Adult Horror
Pages: 316
Favorite Quotes: There are several witty and simply awesome quotes. These are random ones I picked out, because I couldn't decide: "Arthur without Excalibur was still Arthur", "But hey, at least we'll have this strange story to tell, love and death and blood and daddy-issues. And holy crap, I'm a psychiatrist's wet dream.", "Imagination has a poor memory; it slinks away and goes blurry. Eyes remember for much longer." Of course, we cannot, absolutely not forget this one awesome line that made me gasp in class: "You fuck - you ate my cat!" (It was a perfect for the situation. Absolutely perfect.)

"It's the old boy meets girl story, if the boy is a wry, self-destructive ghost-hunter bent on avenging his father and the girl is a homicidal ghost trapped in a house full of everyone she's ever murdered..."

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered 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. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, 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, now stained red and dripping with 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.

Yet she spares Cas's life.

Where do I even begin?

The title. Anna Dressed in Blood. It's beautiful, both in regards to the story and the originality of it, but also in how it sounds. And don't even get me started on that cover or the blood red ink in which the story is printed. (I'm not kidding. Dark red ink. Whoever had this idea needs several pay rises.)

There are few stories that are as original and well rounded as this one, so it is going to be very difficult to describe this book without giving too much away.While the concept of the story was new, it wouldn't have been difficult to fall into the common themes of recent YA books - mainly, unoriginality and romance overshadowing the actual plot. This book did neither. In fact, it did nothing that I expected it to do. First of all, the book is written in first person from the male protagonists point of view. Let's take a moment to appreciate the lovely change from the norm that was, because, let's be honest, girls are running young adult books. Not that that's a bad thing, but it is a refreshing change to have that change. You know what else is a refreshing change? " 'I come in all big and bad, and you use me for a game of handball', I grin. 'Makes a guy feel damn manly. She grins back. 'It made me feel pretty manly.'" We have a hunter here, right? A ghost hunter, one of the rare - if not only - guy that can do what he does. Anna wipes the floor with him. Several times. And that's okay. You know why? Because these characters are damn brilliant, that's why. They're believable. Cas is as tough as he needs to be, without losing his humour or sight of where he's going. But he's also scared. Anna may be one scary little shit, but she still shows more humanity than a lot of books I had skimmed as of late. Friendly reminder: she's not human. Yes, there is a weak tag-along character. No, he doesn't stay an unpopular tag-along character and gets killed off. He isn't brave, but he grows to be. Character development, everyone. Prom Queen? Check. Book that finally acknowledges that not all popular girls are mean and shallow? CHECK. Is she practically useless? Yeah. Does she stay practically useless? No. Why? SHE TRIES.

I don't think I have to go into further detail on my character love. All the kudos for them, all the kudos indeed.

Now, this book has romance in it, as I've mentioned. It's there, budding. But it doesn't properly manifest until about two hundred pages in. That's right. There actually is a plot around Cas who has other important things in his life that don't involve love - and  even when it gets to that, he understands the severity of it. Both do. The hints of romance gave the best balance to the strong but vulnerable double character that both Anna and Cas were (although, spoiler alert, Anna was literally two characters).

From the originality of it all, the spell binding concept, the gasps and witty lines, the budding romance and terrible history of Anna, the underlining seriousness and fear, and just the sheer beauty of this book, I cannot tell you anything other than read it. Yes, it's a horror novel, but don't worry - while there's quite a bit of gore and terror, it's not terribly bad. It's light enough to get you through the day (though I wouldn't advice it for the lighthearted as a midnight read).

The suspense from this book nearly turned me into a ghost, so you better give yourself plenty of time to devour this wonderful piece of literature. You won't regret it - the questions and wonder and feels this book gives you are endless. Which is precisely why I am diving straight into the second book. So, if you will excuse me, I have to go and cure those feels of that ending (yes, I really just alluded to this. You must go get the book now to understand what I'm talking about. No, I'm not sorry.)