Anna Dressed in Blood

Anna Dressed in Blood
by Kendare Blake

Blurb:

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.

My Reaction:
I had reservations about this one, because I knew it was YA fiction, and that's not my usual fare these days.  I should've listened to my doubts, because this wasn't for me.  It's not terrible, but I wasn't enthused by it.  I didn't care for the characters-- or about them, really-- and... Well, almost everything that makes me hesitant to read more modern YA fiction at this point in my life?  It's here.  This book has demonstrated that my instinct to avoid was correct.  I might have liked this somewhat better when I was quite a bit younger, though I would've found the coarse language off-putting at that age.  Now, in my forties?  The language isn't a problem for me, but it's just not an enjoyable reading experience.  There may be exceptions, but I suspect that most modern YA fiction won't be to my liking, now.

The romance was inexplicable.  I guess it was based solely on looks, because they barely interacted, and what interaction there was didn't seem sufficient.  Then there's the horror aspect.  This version of horror is heavily reliant on gross descriptions-- enough to make me skip a few lines, because I'm not a fan of the disgusting, but probably a yawn for fans of body horror.  It's severely lacking in suspense and psychological horror, which I much prefer to the gross-out stuff.  

This book kinda-sorta stands on its own (if you're okay with major plot holes and abrupt, unsatisfying endings), but there's a sequel, and the ending makes that very clear.  I won't be reading it.  I can't see what could happen that would make it "worth it".  I'll just imagine my own sequel.  ...There.  I probably whipped up an ending I'd find more satisfying than whatever is in the actual book, anyway!