Title: Anna Dressed in Blood
Author: Kendare Blake
Publisher: Tor Teen
Copyright: 2011
ISBN: 9780765328670
Reading Level: Grades 9-12
Genre: Horror
Reader’s Annotation: A teenage ghost killer sets out to eliminate the murderous ghost of a young girl.
Review
This book starts off promisingly. The premise is interesting: some ghosts haunt the places they died and kill living people who happen by. Seventeen-year-old Cas has a special calling, inherited from his murdered father, to destroy them. He and his mother move all over the country, following stories of mysterious deaths. Cas researches the local haunting, seeks out the ghost, kills it, moves on.
The story centers on Cas's quest to subdue Anna Dressed in Blood, a particularly murderous ghost who haunts a Victorian mansion in the small town of Thunder Bay, Michigan. Anna is a truly terrifying creation, and Cas's first encounter with her is very, very scary. Her backstory, too, is disturbing and compelling, though it owes so much to Carrie that I find it completely mysterious when reviewers gush about the book's "originality."
The book loses focus about halfway through, when it becomes clear that another ghost has followed Cas to town. Though there are certainly some tense moments in the second half, I think the author would've done better to make the story all about Anna and tightened it into a single novel. (The sequel, which appeared in 2012, is called Girl of Nightmares.) One more complaint: for a kid with a most unusual life, Cas has a disappointingly generic, unmemorable voice.
Challenge Issues: Gore, child abuse, language
Author: Kendare Blake
Publisher: Tor Teen
Copyright: 2011
ISBN: 9780765328670
Reading Level: Grades 9-12
Genre: Horror
Reader’s Annotation: A teenage ghost killer sets out to eliminate the murderous ghost of a young girl.
Review
This book starts off promisingly. The premise is interesting: some ghosts haunt the places they died and kill living people who happen by. Seventeen-year-old Cas has a special calling, inherited from his murdered father, to destroy them. He and his mother move all over the country, following stories of mysterious deaths. Cas researches the local haunting, seeks out the ghost, kills it, moves on.
The story centers on Cas's quest to subdue Anna Dressed in Blood, a particularly murderous ghost who haunts a Victorian mansion in the small town of Thunder Bay, Michigan. Anna is a truly terrifying creation, and Cas's first encounter with her is very, very scary. Her backstory, too, is disturbing and compelling, though it owes so much to Carrie that I find it completely mysterious when reviewers gush about the book's "originality."
The book loses focus about halfway through, when it becomes clear that another ghost has followed Cas to town. Though there are certainly some tense moments in the second half, I think the author would've done better to make the story all about Anna and tightened it into a single novel. (The sequel, which appeared in 2012, is called Girl of Nightmares.) One more complaint: for a kid with a most unusual life, Cas has a disappointingly generic, unmemorable voice.
Challenge Issues: Gore, child abuse, language