Anna Dressed In Blood by Kendare Blake

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.

Rating: 3.5 stars

I just don't know about this book, it was good enough...just not great. I know, I know, I'm raining on your parade, cause I know you all love this book, I just didn't think it was all that spectacular, you know?

The characters were nice enough, but typical. Bad-ass guy doesn't think he's a player, sees a girl, falls in love within the first hundred and fifty pages, and tada, you have a book. And of course people will love this book, because it's from a dude's POV and because it is it shows 'a softer side' to the otherwise hardcore, douchy character. I, personally, thought he was lame.

Now before you all start throwing things at me, let me tell you why. Theseus Cassio, or Cas, never made any attempt to push Carmel and Thomas away. Maybe a little at first, but it only took like, two days before they were hunting demons together. It seemed to me that if he was so skilled at pushing people away, he'd do a better job? And he surprised himself a lot when he talked, like 'omigosh, did I just say that? I usually control my mouth...hmmm.' And it just seemed so weird that he would say such stupid things without any fore thought. Like really? You're still surprised you said that? Come on, it's like the fifth time, get used to it.

Carmel was okay, although I really didn't understand her character that much. She seemed to be pretty focused on Cas, and then she wasn't. Seriously, about halfway through the book it was as though she had switched between the pretty, flirty girl who tries to take the main character away from the real love interest and makes a love triangle, to the kinda, sorta friend who helps out with stuff and hangs around to the point of being irritating--just because she can. It became ridiculous to the point where I just wanted her to get out of the stupid story already.

Will was the most out there and wack job character I've ever encountered. Blake made it very clear in the beginning of the book that he was the smart, logical one who actually respected the main character. But, where all the changes happen, about halfway through the book it's as though Blake just decided that it would be better if he became a total douche bag and screwed up the entire story line. He literally became crazy, all that level headedness (yes of course that's a word, don't be--okay fine) he had earlier just vanished. Shame too, I actually liked him.

There's really nothing to say about Mike, he dies pretty early on in the story. It's pretty apparent that he's an awful guy who--for reasons unexplained--deems it necessary to hit strangers over the head with floor boards and knock them unconscious, and obviously we're supposed to hate him. So I did. And that's that really. No comment.

Anna was my favorite character, and even she became a little bit irritating at the end. I liked her all the way up to the last, say, fifty pages. In other words, until the romance kicked in. She was the freaking epitome of badassery, and then Blake just had to mess it up. She was so beautiful and evil and awesome and then she and Cas talked for a little while and then her entire personality just kind of washed away. I found that slightly unrealistic, even if she has been longing for love all those years. You don't love someone within a week of knowing them. It doesn't happen. I don't care how bad you wanna get it on with that girl while she's ripping someone in two, it doesn't happen.

What happened in this book is probably my second biggest pet-peeve in books. Take the romance nowhere during the entire book the at the end, all the hidden feelings neither of them experienced before come rushing out. It completely distracts from the actual plot of the book and it's plain out annoying.

All in all, I think this book would've been a whole lot better without the romance.

But of course it doesn't really matter what I say, because all of you will go out there and read it anyway. And you'll probably enjoy the book too, and kudos for you. Everything and everyone seemed a bit unrealistic to me though, but give it a try.

xxAvalon